A Tie Between Two Stars
by Allseer
Summary: Strings have been pulled and lives arranged for this very time on this very planet. It has been long awaited and long expected. This would be when everything came to a head. When the war would finally end, Cybertron would be revived, and her people returned home. Everything rid on this time. On this group of humans and Cybertronians. On this girl and this mech. OP/OC T for swearing
1. Chapter 1

**Alright. So third story I've posted. For those of you who've read my Assassins Creed Story **_**The Eagle and Hawk of Masyaf**_** you may have seen me mention working on a transformers story. Well… Here it is. I've been working on it for a while, but I learned my lesson of promising chapters I haven't written yet so I've been working on this for a LONG TIME. So please forgive any errors or changes in writing style, details, or character. I've gone through and read this thing from beginning to end and I can see that the beginning isn't all that great, but I can promise that it gets better as you go along. It's a slow beginning, focusing on my OC, but it picks up pace really quickly because I get impatient.**

**I hope you enjoy.**

**I don't own anything except Dark Star. Not even the picture no matter how adorable it is. Don't sue me and I won't haunt you.**

**Chapter One**

I opened my eyes to darkness and sighed quietly before sitting up. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was around before staggering to my feet in pain. Hissing, I pressed a hand to my rib cage to check for any fractures or breaks. Luckily, there were none. Forcing myself to my feet and look for my backpack, I grimaced.

The night before I'd had the chance to stash it before they had found me, so when I dug it out from under all the trash bags in a corner of the dark alley, the knowledge that all my precious work inside was fine was reassuring, but that didn't stop me from checking to make sure. Sighing in relief, I looked down at my clothes and was relieved that they weren't too dirty. I slapped most of the dirt and unnamables from my black jeans, which were two sizes too large, my baggy green T-Shirt, and very big black zip-up jacket. I felt immense relief when I realized that the men who had attacked me last night had only been after anything valuable I had been carrying and not after my body.

I shuddered briefly before pulling up my hood to hide my face in shadows and slinging my back pack over my shoulders. I headed for the exit of the alley and looked around to see where I was exactly. Once I had a good Idea of where I was, I began heading for my usual spot. As I walked I kept a wary eye out for anyone who might get into their heads that I was an easy target. Those men hadn't gotten anything off of me last night thanks to all those lessons I'd bargained for over the years. I knew over a dozen fighting styles and had them all down pat. The only reason I'd collapsed was because I hadn't been able to block that stupid steel pipe to the head, but I had been able to control my body enough to hold off unconsciousness until I'd fought off the huge burly trio.

On the streets, you had to learn how to fight or you would die.

I turned a corner on one of my several paths to my destination. You never knew if someone was watching you, so it was best to be as unpredictable as possible.

It was a good ten minutes of walking before the old buildings morphed into businesses and homes. Chicago was essentially divided into three parts. The poor lived in the outer most ring, the middle-class filled the middle ring, and the upper-class packed the very center that was Chicago, where all the skyscrapers, famous buildings, and bridges were. I was heading to the northern part of the middle class to spend the morning in my usual place. The streets lost the tense watchful feeling that they had where I lived and the feeling of business and…normalness took over. I went with the stream of other people walking in the busy streets and looked up at the skyscrapers coming closer. They were where I was heading.

It was another five minutes of walking and dodging wayward cars and people before I reached the Square. It was called just that because it was a huge concrete courtyard surrounded by buildings and filled with metal sculptures and benches and a playground for kids. I went over to the statue of a small girl smiling down at a lone flower that sat a little off to the side from everything else. It was about fifteen feet tall and made of bronze. The artist for it wasn't anywhere on it. I guess it was supposed to be a happy feeling you were supposed to get from the statue, but I only felt sad. The girl was smiling at a flower instead of someone else, like her father or best friend. Instead she was happy when she was alone with a single flower. How lonely and depressing.

I sat on the edge of the stone ledge that ran around the base of the stone stand the statue rested on. I slid off my backpack and gingerly dug around inside until I pulled out a plastic bag wrapped in cloth. This was how I kept my stuff waterproof so that none of my work was damaged. I pulled the circuit board out of the bag and checked to make sure that none of the wires or components I'd put on had been messed up. Satisfied that nothing needed fixed, I took out another cloth bag that was full with other wires and components. I crossed my legs under me, sat with a straight back, and set to work on the circuit board.

I hadn't been there 30 minutes when a woman's voice brought me out of my work. "Excuse me."

Looking up from the electronics, I saw an early-thirties woman standing five feet away, looking nervous, with a big purse slung over her shoulder.

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Can I help you?" My voice was soft and quiet, but I had it just loud enough to where the woman could hear me. Looking over her attire, I realized that she was from the upper class if her designer shoes, Coach purse, expensive makeup, fancy hair-do, and designer business suit were anything to go by. I was instantly curious as to why she was here and bothering me, but I had a feeling why.

The woman's grip on her purse tightened before she met my black eyes under my hood, "I was told by a friend to look for a girl named Star in the Square by the statue of the little girl if I had any technology problems."

Ah. So I had been right. I put my stuff back in their bags carefully before giving her my undivided attention. I didn't say anything, just waited for her to tell me her problem.

She fidgeted under my gaze until she snapped at me, "Well? Aren't you going to say something?"

I snorted and felt my lips twitch in a small smile. "What do you expect me to say? I'm good with technology, not mindreading."

The woman glared at me angrily, "How about you tell me where I can take my problem. Where is this Star that everyone says can fix anything? I need my laptop fixed in two days." She lifted her nose into the air slightly and gave me a haughty look that said that I was way below her. I didn't have to think long about what she thought of the teenager in clothes that were way too big and dirty.

I felt my irritation begin to flare and half closed my eyes even though my hood already hid them in shadows. It was a habit since my bottomless black eyes freaked people out. I had to learn the tendency when I was young and a couple of drunk adults I'd had the misfortune of meeting had had enough of the little girl asking for money with her big creepy black eyes. The scar that ran from below my right eye down in a straight line to my jaw attested to that fact.

I schooled my face into an emotionless face before replying, "I'm Star."

The woman scoffed in disbelief. Apparently her friend hadn't told her a few things about me. "You're only a kid. A high school kid at best. What are you? Fifteen years old? Sixteen?"

_Seventeen_, I answered silently, but I was used to people calling me young and too little, so I didn't feel any resentment at her demands. Well, I was roughly seventeen years old. I had no clue when I was born so I was going on how many years I could remember going by. I only sighed and changed the subject, "Look, Mrs…"

"Gurter," she snapped, and sniffed at me, giving me a quick disgusted once over. "But I wouldn't expect a little Goth kid like you to know such a prestigious woman like me."

I felt my lips quirk at the challenge she was presenting and took it. "Mrs. Gurter. The 28 year old woman, who has had her 28th birthday for 6 years now. Wife of William Gurter, who is a well established business man who deals in cell phones, computers, and other electronics. But he's been dealing with trafficking cocaine ever since Apple came out with their new slim laptop. And, if my sources are correct, it is his wife Samantha Gurter who introduced him into that business once the income started decreasing. And my sources also tell me that Mrs. Gurter regularly sees a 21 year old man over on Tellie Avenue." I trailed off my recitation with a small smile as Mrs. Gurter stiffened considerably and turned an interesting shade of purple. I held up my hand to stall her when her mouth opened. "Don't worry, Mrs. Gurter. I sometimes ask for information as payment for some jobs, and that information stays with me all the time." I shrugged nonchalantly, "I have no reason to use it. Unless you give me one, which I doubt you will." I was satisfied to see that her mouth snapped closed with a small _clack_ of perfect teeth and her eyes to look anywhere but me. "Now, on to business," I announced, bringing her eyes back to me. "You said you needed a laptop fixed in two days."

The woman was much nicer, or at least cooperative, now that I had knocked her down a peg. She nodded quickly, and I admired how her fancy up-do didn't move an inch at the movement. Mrs. Gurter ducked her head to dig through her mammoth sized purse and pulled out a Dell laptop. She hesitated and hugged it to her chest. "You aren't going to steal or break it, are you?" Her dirt brown eyes shot daggers at me.

I sighed and crossed my arms. "Mrs. Gurter," I chastised. "Think about what you just said. You've heard of my work, right?" She nodded after a pause. "And what have you heard of me?"

I wasn't fishing for a compliment, but Mrs. Gurter seemed to think I was by the way her eyes narrowed, but she answered all the same. "I heard that you do great repairs on pretty much everything that needs electricity to run and that you'll do work for cheap and rarely for money. You do work if people do favors for you. Like pay for lessons or get you the odd object here and there."

"And have you ever heard that I failed or disappointed anyone who came to me?"

The woman would've been hissing right now if she could. "No," she spat, not liking it one bit that I was pointing out that she was false in her accusation.

I waved a hand at her, "So there's the answer to your question. Now, can I see your computer?"

Even though she was pissed at me she still handed me her Dell with care. I opened it in my lap and immediately saw the problem. I sighed and shook my head, "You said you want this done by the day after tomorrow?"

She nodded and fidgeted again before taking a step forward and asking with concern, "Do you think you'll be able to fix it? I went to other people before you and they said it was irreparable, that I should just get a new one."

I ran a caring hand over the damaged computer and felt my heart go out for the abused technology. I know it was strange to care so much about electricity and wires and circuit boards, but it was my thing, like how an artist was upset when they saw a damaged painting: I just felt that technology should be taken better care of. "It would be less of a hassle if you got a new computer," I replied and I saw her shoulders sink in defeat. "But," I continued and she perked up a bit. "I might be able to repair it. The coffee you spilt on it can cause a little or a lot of damage. The problem is that I can't tell the extent of the damage right now. It can be anywhere from just a few fried wires to a circuit board that needs replaced or that the entire motherboard is shot to hell."

"Language!" Mrs. Gurter hissed and I shot her a look she couldn't see.

I let it go and closed the laptop, "Did the other people you took your computer to open it up to see the damage? It could save me some time if I already knew what the problem was."

She shook her head, "No. They just looked at it and said it was better to get a new one."

I straightened in indignation and demanded harshly in my cold voice, "What?" I reigned in my frustration and irritation when the other woman briefly flinched. "They didn't even open it? What kind of repairmen are they? They're not, that's what. They're just men hoping to get an easy paycheck. Stupid, lazy people. They didn't even look to see what the problem was. How inconsiderate. The laptop didn't do anything wrong to get treated this way. Nothing." I mumbled under my breath while glaring at the ground. Taking a deep calming breath, I faced the now confused woman. "I'll see what I can do. Come back here in two days and I'll either have your computer or the name of the place you can get a new computer for cheap. Okay?"

She nodded, a frown of confusion still on her face. She was about to turn away before she turned back towards me and asked, "What do I owe you for this?"

I frowned this time, but in thought instead of confusion. What did I want? _A new life_, the tired part of my mind said, and I sighed in agreement. I didn't want to have to look over my shoulder every minute to check and see if someone was after me for the work I did or the business I stole. I didn't want to be alone anymore. I just wanted someone to be by my side and watch my back for me. Something gripped my heart and throat in a painful hold and I shut my eyes to fight off the sting of tears. I was so tired. Tired of everything.

I pushed off the suffocating despair with everything I had and finally looked up at the waiting woman. "A book," I replied. "One on astronomy. A thick one with as much information in it as possible."

The woman nodded and finally left me alone. I placed the Dell in my backpack with care before hurriedly pulling the circuit board out of its baggy. I began fiddling with the wires and components with shaking fingers in hopes that my work would push away the desolation and sadness. It took a few hours and multiple close calls to breaking down before I finally calmed my emotions and stuffed them into my glass jar. It was then that I glanced at my watch and saw that it was now 11:30.

Packing my stuff away into my backpack before leaving my spot, I moved out of the Square and to the edge of the city, only a mile away from where the city met desert and stood atop a ramp that sloped down into a dark tunnel. The entire length of the twenty foot ramp was filled with warning signs and 'Do Not Enter' signs. I ignored them and snaked my way past them all to disappear into the dark. It eased my always present tension a bit that if anyone looked, no one would be able to see me since I was dressed in all black surround by pitch black.

I didn't need to turn on a light to know where I was going. I've been coming here ever since I could remember. The earliest memory I possessed was tripping over a forgotten crack and breaking a finger. I knew that the ceiling was only ten feet high now, but if I kept walking it would eventually reach forty feet in height, that each and every tunnel was 15 paces, or 30 feet, wide, and where each and every bump and drop was in the abandoned tunnels.

As I turned a corner I thought of how silly the city was for leaving the tunnels like this. Ever since that big earthquake when I was little no one dared to come down here into the ancient tunnels, for fear that they would collapse. I knew they wouldn't. I don't know how I knew, I just did. This was my sanctuary and it wouldn't force me out. I had no clue what these tunnels were originally built for to be made so big, but I didn't care. It suited me just fine.

I turned another corner, took 15 steps before stopping and reaching my right hand out. Sure enough, my hand brushed a small swinging metal box. Latching on to it, I pressed the button on the top. Bright lights came on with a snap and I squinted in an effort to avoid the shocking pain from the abrupt switch from pitch black to glaring brightness.

After a couple moments, I blinked away the last of the black spots and looked around at my domain. The cavern was box in shape. Thirty to fifty feet tall, 60 feet wide, and 40 feet deep. It was truly a massive place, but I used pretty much most of it. The entire left wall was covered in shelves at 3 foot intervals going up with some spaces running in between them so I could rest a ladder against the wall and reach the upper shelves. And the upper shelves were positively _filled _with every single electronic device imaginable. For my projects and work I would rifle through my treasure trove for replacement parts or small pieces I needed. I had individual pieces laying on those shelves, whole desktop computers, televisions ranging from different time periods… You name it and I probably had it. Even the illegal technology I shouldn't have. I was a bit of a packrat like that. And despite its chaotic appearance, it was all organized to the point where I could find whatever I needed with the exception where I would pick something up and leave it somewhere in the cavern.

The back wall had an assortment of mismatch tables crowded with thirteen different projects at the moments. Some of them you could look at them and tell what I was doing, like making that little robot over there in the corner, and sometimes you would look at one of my projects and think, "What the hell is she trying to create there? The Eiffel Tower?" They ranged in size from the size of a toy truck or a toaster to the size of a Rottweiler to the size of a small car. That particular project was sitting in front of the tables, for it weighed too much for the tables to carry. I'd learned that the hard way and weeks of repairs. Each project had about ten feet on either side so I had plenty of room to place my tools and needed objects around the object they belonged to. On the wall above those tables was where I hung my tools on pegs when they weren't being used.

The right wall was my personal wall. I had several bookcases of various sizes filled to the brim with books I bargained to get; I also had multiple spinning racks filed with CDs. There was a small couch resting there, which was where I would sleep or chill and watch the news that I had sent from one of my computers to the huge 25x50 inch flat screen hung on the wall. I'd had to work particularly hard for that one and it had taken quite a bit of muscle work and timing to get down here since if I was caught down here, I could get arrested. There was also a stereo that had wires running out of it to the dozen or so speakers positioned all over the cavern.

The center of the room was completely empty for whatever use I wanted for it. The cavern itself was so roomy and…me. It had taken me my entire life with blood, sweat, tears, and frustration to get it to where it was now. It was my home as far back as I could remember and I had improved it and made it more hospitable with the lights and added touches over the years. This was the one place I could go where I would be safe. No one knew I was down here and I was _safe_. That was a word I could rarely use.

I winced and reached to touch the scar that ringed my neck before turning to the wall closest to me.

On the very last wall, just to the right of the massive doorway I was standing in, was three matching tables holding up multiple monitor's and key boards. I headed there now and gently placed my backpack under the tables as I sat down in the spinning wheeled office chair. I pushed myself easily down the tables until I stopped myself in front of the largest of the mismatched monitors. Pulling one of the old keyboards towards me, I hit the Enter Key and all the monitors flashed green as they came online.

I sometimes jokingly referred to this monitor wall as my 'spy wall' because I had designed it to look like something I'd seen in a movie. It was a good thing that my cavern was underground where all the major electrical lines were only a matter of finding and tapping into. And the city would never know that I was using a crap load power for my cavern.

I snorted a bit as I shrugged out of my jacket. There was no need to wear it down here where no one would find me. For a moment, I looked down at the scars that marred my arms from all the times I had tried to defend myself and failed, and then gotten beaten later for trying to defend myself. One hand reached up to touch my very tender and swollen knot on top of my head before I looked at my reflection in the monitor screen.

I was tall for a girl my age. I guess I was a woman if you wanted to get technical with my age. I was 5'9" with tan skin from all the time I spent exercising when I wasn't working. My face was blemished by three thin white scars. There was the one that ran from below my right black eye down to my jaw. It was sort of like a cheesy tear track from a movie. Then there was the one that was jagged and three inches long on the left side of my forehead, and then there was the thin white line than ran from the corner of my left eye to just below my left ear. Those scars were pretty small and unnoticeable compared to the ones that basically covered my entire body. There was hardly a place untouched. And I knew how I came to carry those scars. Each and every story was burned into my mind since I refused to let myself to forget each lesson those scars represented.

I had normal eyes with the exception that instead of having brown or green irises I have deep bottomless black eyes. You could hardly find my pupils in all the black. I had a normal nose. Not too big. Not too small. I also had full red lips. But my one vanity was my incredibly long black hair.

I pulled my butt length black braid over my shoulder and looked it over. It would be better for me to just cut it: so it couldn't be used to hold me in place or hurt me, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. This was the one thing that made me feel…beautiful in a body that was disfigured by the scars of fights and just trying to survive. The braid was as thick as my forearm and loosely wound, so when I let it out of its bindings my hair would be an extremely long shiny curtain of black ink that could pool around me if I sat down. Out of its braid, my hair was a bit longer than mid-thigh. I couldn't remember the last time I'd cut it more than an inch or two to get rid of split-ends.

I pushed my braid back over my shoulder and clicked the Enter button again and the green screens disappeared to black to be replaced with a single line of green text that read "Password" and had a flashing line to tell me where I was typing. Quickly entering my 27 character long password, I watched as each screen flashed to where I had left it when I had shut it down last night. The center eight monitors were split into four sections each and showed a night vision shot of various tunnels. I had cameras placed throughout the tunnels so I would know if someone was in fact in the vicinity. I also had motion and heat detectors placed along the with the cameras to set off an alarm that would bring me out of whatever project I was working on to come see the invaders. Normally the invaders were just teenagers who were down in the 'dangerous and haunted' underground tunnels on a dare and only needed a few random noises to scare off, but it never hurt to be prepared.

The other eight monitors, four on each side of the center eight, were for various interests. Some of them hand several articles pulled up on discoveries. Some of them had video clips running and some were hacked into various government networks. Those were very delicate, but very well hidden hacks. I'm not a government conspiracy crazy person, but I did this a few years back to test my skill in hacking. It had taken me _five years and two months_ to finally get through to the good stuff without getting caught.

I was good.

Not even the government could keep out me, a teenager. But I would give them credit. Even with all my illegal toys and equipment they had had a pretty impressive, intimidating, and complicated firewalls and defenses. I'd had a few close calls while working on that project, but had managed to lose whoever had managed to pick up my presence by erasing my trail and laying low for a little while. It certainly didn't help that the government was constantly upgrading their security for the better stuff. It had been downright annoying sometimes when I would start hacking one day and there would be an entire new wall that hadn't been there the day before in front of my progress.

After making sure that nothing was showing up on my cameras, I wheeled myself down to said government computers and looked at what the good ol' US of A was up to today. My fingers flew over the keys as I brought up various documents and orders that had been uploaded recently. My eyes scanned them with a practiced eye and discarded those that were monotonous and just 'blah' and looked for the ones that were gold. I always got a thrill when I went through any government information. I could go from CIA to FBI to NSA to the freakin' president's personal computer to any database I wanted to and no one would know. That's what was cool. The arrogant bastards didn't know that an seventeen year old girl had access to pretty much all their files and dirty laundry.

I smiled a bit at that thought as I cruised on into recent army orders and read them over. I frowned in thought before spinning over to my second government computer and clicking on the search box. I typed in 'Lennox, William' and watched as the data poured in at this man. I whistled at the awards and prestige this man had and glanced back over at the order on the other screen. A man by the name of William Lennox had been sent overseas to a military base dubbed 'SOCCENT' in Qatar with his team. I ran multiple searches on the other men in Lennox's team and pulled all of their very official files next to each other. A dozen men and all of them were names and faces I'd read many times before. It seemed as if Lennox, the man who was in charge of the team, and his men were called into pretty impossible situations. And if their mission records were correct then they had succeeded in every mission with minimum casualties. These guys were the top dogs and the best of the best.

"Good luck," I murmured as I turned away from my 'search government' computer and faced my 'information government' computer. I scanned for anything else of interest. There wasn't really anything besides a terrorist the CIA had caught and a motion the Secretary of Defense, John Keller, was trying to get through. I liked the Sec. Def. and rooted for him a lot. He wasn't like any of the other blood sucking politicians. He seemed to be genuinely concerned for his country and the men who fought for it. If the motion to have a larger amount of time soldiers have on leave was passed than Keller would be a much loved man. "Hope you get it passed," I quietly said for Keller.

I finally spun away from my computers after a quick glance at the news video monitors. There was nothing of concern being streamed at the moment, so I left those monitors on mute and scooped up my backpack before heading over to my personal wall. I pushed the power button to the stereo so it could wake up while I looked for some music that I was in the mood for. I spun one rack and frowned when I couldn't decide on what to listen to. I shrugged and plucked a CD case after a moment. _When in doubt, Linkin Park_, I thought idly as I slid the disc into my stereo. It wasn't a fancy new stereo by any means. I saw no reason to buy something brand new. What you bought brand new last week will fall out of popularity next week, but my stereo was tough and I may have modified it a time or two, so I didn't think of scraping it. Much.

As the speakers clicked on and started playing a song, I went over to my project wall and set my backpack in the empty space I kept for jobs I was given. I took the laptop out and opened it up for me to see before standing back and looking at it. I hesitated for a moment and glanced at the 'Eiffel Tower' looking project. I had the urge to just forget the Dell and keep working on my project, but I sighed and eased the urge with the thought that if I finished the laptop now I wouldn't have to stop later to do it.

I looked at the screws that held the Dell together before walking down my tables to pluck up my needed screwdriver. I had the piece of machinery open in only two minutes and I frowned in thought as I observed the guts. My experienced eyes immediately saw where wires and been burned in a short circuit and where a small circuit board had been damaged beyond a simple repair. It wasn't as bad as a few I'd seen before. Picking up a much smaller screwdriver I released the circuit board from its confines and turned it over to look at the other side before tossing it over my shoulder into the 'scrap' pile.

I walked over to my shelves and went over my sorting list in my head before looking up three shelves to see my broken down laptop collection. Luckily, the shelf was close enough to the ground so I didn't have to fetch my heavy ladder from the other side of the room to get the Dell laptop. Calling up my mental memory log, I recalled that this model of Dell had only come out six months before Mrs. Gurter's and should have very similar insides. When a company comes out with a 'new' laptop, they usually changed one small thing about the computer design, which made my job easier.

I opened up the broken laptop and found the circuit board I needed, as well as the small components that the heated wires had fried. Twenty minutes later of delicate work had all the pieces replaced and the slightly dismantled broken Dell back on the shelves. I then picked up a rag and began dabbing up any traces of the coffee that had been spilled.

It was as I was leaning in close to peer around the guts that my stomach rumbled loudly at the scent of coffee. I frowned and stood back as I thought. I'd forgotten to buy a breakfast that morning because waking up in an alley tends to do that and I'd left the Square around lunch time. When I looked over my shoulder at my monitors, I scowled. The tiny corner clocks on all the screens were invisible from 40 feet away. "I really need to get a clock," I muttered to myself as I turned the now dry and fixed Dell laptop right side up and powered it up.

I smiled as the screen came alive. It was always a pleasant feeling when I was able to take something that other people would give up on and make them like new. Some repairmen wouldn't even think to clean up any remaining coffee. _And some won't even bother to open up the computer_, I thought with irritation. Sighing, I powered down the laptop and put it back in my pack so I wouldn't forget it later, because I would with how lost I became in my projects.

I was looking at my other 13 projects and wondering which one I should work on next when my stomach growled again. My eyes narrowed and I growled right back at it in annoyance. "Why can't you shut up for a little while?" I demanded as I glared down at the noisy part of my body. "I know you're hungry, okay? Now shut up and let me work." My stomach growled louder in response, and I sighed breaking down as I felt the beginning ache of a headache coming on.

I really needed to eat more than I did. I was nearly skin and bones underneath my oversized clothes, and even if I did have that three thousand dollar stash of cash among my shelves I couldn't really find a place to eat. The gangs and business people I upset with my work made sure that it was hard for me to live. The gangs who had a particularly deep grudge and hate towards me would have a few of their boys at most of the diners and restaurants. Now in a city as big as Chicago I could just walk down the street and find another place to eat, but these boys patrolled the eating places constantly. They would look in to see if I was there and then move on to the next place. Not to mention the gangs had the business owners warned against not serving me unless they suddenly wanted to get robbed or assaulted. And the gangs were very thorough when it came to me. I stole a lot of work from them because I was so well known in Chicago.

I slid on my jacket and took a few twenties from one of my multiple jars of money and headed out of my cavern after turning off the lights and music. I began to wander the streets, while keeping a watchful eye out for the gang symbols I was familiar with. You'd think that gangs would get that if they didn't wear their representative colors or pictures that they'd be less noticed when they didn't want to be seen, but no. I've had more than one group of gang members try and follow me back home, but I'd caught on to them quickly thanks to the clothes they wore. They never seemed to learn.

After having to actually walk to the other side of Chicago, taking two hours to do so in the process, I finally managed to find a fast food place that wasn't being watched. And when I went inside I didn't see the managers pale in fear. It was a quick uninterrupted stop thankfully, and I was out of there in a little over five minutes. As I walked I dug into the paper bag and pulled out a cheeseburger and began to munch. The stuff was bad for me, but I took what I could get. The gangs made my life a little bit of an inconvenience and it wasn't like I could go to a grocery store and then carry the bags home. First, I didn't have a refrigerator, though that might get useful if finding food got any harder than what it was now, and, second, it's a little hard to remain unseen or run when you rustle and clank with every step and you're weighed down by thirty pounds of products. So, I made do with whatever I could get my hands on.

It was as I was chewing on my last bite that I heard someone shout, "There she is!"

I spun and saw a group of four boys run at me, ignoring that there were innocent bystanders around. Nearly choking on my food, I spun on heel and sprinted away. Now I may be thin and fragile-looking, but I lacked in strength I made up in speed. I could've disappeared from the sights of the younger boys if the _bang_ of a gun hadn't gone off. As usual with giving a teenager a gun it hit nowhere near me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman go down clutching her side. I swore and skidded to a halt as people screamed around me and either fled or fell to the ground to avoid any other shots. Pivoting, I reached into my sleeves and grasped the hilts of the knives and pulled them from their sheathes I had sewn into my jacket.

I snarled soundlessly and sprinted at the boys, who had halted in surprise at my change in tactics. That surprise turned into determination as the idiot who had already pulled a gun moved to aim a shot at me and the idiots buddy's reached for what I assume was their own guns. When I saw that the boy was almost aimed in my direction, I dove to the side and rolled to my feet only to lunge at the nearest boy. I slashed on boy deeply in his left shoulder and switched my grip on the other knife to cut into another boy's back. Both of them yelled out and collapsed from the 'agony' they were in. I felt something inside me harden. They didn't know the pain I did.

I dropped into a smooth crouch and scored another cut into the third boy's thigh. The fourth boy had fear written on his face as I swept his legs out from underneath him and straddled his chest after kicking his gun away. The fear on his face turned to terror as I raised my knife and brought it down as if to stab him through the eye. He screamed in a very unmanly way and stiffened like metal when I stopped the knife a mere centimeter from his dark brown eye. I held my blade there for a moment before whipping it away to wipe away any blood off on his white and neon yellow shirt. He was part of the Gold Collector gang.

I met his eyes with my black ones and coldly said, "You're an idiot for getting involved in a gang. Get out before you die." I jumped off of him and strode over to the woman who had taken that bullet to her side.

She didn't seem to see me as I knelt beside her. Her blue eyes were wide and dull with shock and pain. I placed my hands on her where they were clutching her now red side. I looked back up at her face and saw that her breaths were coming in very short and fast pants and that her hands were very chilled. I gritted my teeth and tried to remember the little knowledge I had on human anatomy, which was next to nothing with the exception on how to disinfect and sew up a wound and how to set a broken bone.

I turned my eyes away from the woman and caught the eyes of a balding man who was staring at me with wide eyes from his prone position on the ground. "Come here," I ordered with an even voice, but the man paled a little when he heard the 'don't you dare disobey me' tone. The man came closer and I tersely ordered, "Take off your sweater and give it here." He opened his mouth to argue but shut it quickly when I let him see a glare from me. I took the large sweater and tore it in two, ignoring the slightly overweight man's yelps of protest. Lifting the barely conscious woman a little, I tied half the scarf around her midriff to hold the other half of the bundled up sweater over the bullet wound. "Keep pressure on this," I commanded, pointing at my sweater bandage. He was beyond pale at the moment and I wondered briefly if he would faint while listening to me before focusing on the woman again.

"Hey," I called as I lightly slapped the woman's clammy cheek. Her only response was to loll her head away from. I did this a few more times with a little more force behind each slap until the blue eyes finally blinked and focused on me. "I need you stay awake for me, okay?" I only got a frown of confusion before she gasped and arched in pain.

"Not too much pressure!" I hissed at the frightened man. I didn't resent the incapable man for it. He did just see a gang try and kill a teenage girl and said teenage girl take them out in only a few seconds with only knives.

"Hey, hey. Look at me, lady. I need you to tell what your name is and where you live." Those blue eyes only rolled in terror and pain and I was about to repeat the request when I heard the sound of sirens getting closer. My head snapped up and I guessed on the distance and time until I had cops swarming the place. I glared at the bald man and instructed, "Don't let her fall asleep. She needs to stay awake." _I think_, I added silently. I was so nervous at the moment, but I had to push the feeling away as a cop car peeled around the corner not too far away.

I swore in Chinese briefly as I turned and sprinted in the opposite direction. It was just my luck that another cop car came on to the street as I was running across. I would've been hit if I hadn't dove into a roll and slid under a car that had been abandoned when the gun had been fired. Running again in an instant, I swore in Russian when I heard sirens coming closer to me and looked over my shoulder to see the cop car I had just dodged coming after me. _You almost hit me, you dumbass!_ I mentally shouted. _Can't you stop while you're ahead?!_

Apparently not, because I had to lose the cops in some twisting alleys and eventually one that wasn't big enough for the car to go through and even then the cops chased me on foot, but I lost them soon enough when they couldn't cheat at speed with their car. But even after I'd lost the cops, I kept running. I needed to get out of the area and quick before I was stuck somewhere when everyone, gangs and cops, were looking everywhere for someone who looked even the slightest bit suspicious. I didn't really keep track of where I was running, only that I was. I figured that if I had no clue where I was going than no one else would either.

By the time I came to my senses, I was weaving my way through the forest that surrounded Chicago. It was then that I finally slowed to a walk and started to catch my breath. I had no clue how far I'd run, but I knew it was far if the trembling in my legs were anything to go by. I could naturally run for a long time and if I was feeling even the slightest bit tired than I'd run quite a distance, and that means it will probably take me a while to get home.

I groaned at that thought, but kept walking further into the forest. The sky was settling down into a sunset when I broke the tree line and came upon a meadow. A rather large one at that. It was roughly 100 meters by 100 meters. Sighing I plopped down on to the grass and got comfortable to watch the sunset. It had been a while since I'd made the trek out of the city to just sit outside among nature and just watch the sunrise or sunset.

"At least I got something out of this mess," I said aloud. I reached up to scratch my nose when I stopped at the sight of red. I looked at my hand and saw that it had blood drying on it. My other hand had the same. The thought of blood brought the injured woman to mind.

I really hoped that I hadn't hurt the woman further than she already had been. I knew technology. Not human bodies. If I had any skill in that department I would've been working to earn money to get into med school, but I had none. I only knew how to take care of myself and even that was probably done horribly too with the number of infections and scars I'd put under my belt, but when I needed the knowledge I hadn't had it. I didn't know if the woman had gone into 'shock', whatever that meant. I didn't know if the bullet had hit an artery or anything else of equal importance. I could've been able to increase the woman's odds of surviving if I knew what I had been doing.

But I hadn't and that weighed on my mind heavily.

I watched the sunset with eyes that saw but didn't really see at all as my mind brought up every single scenario that could've happened to the woman. She could've bled out after I had left. The bald man could've put more pressure than needed and made the wound worse. The woman could've been picked up by the paramedics but only to flat line later as her heart gave out underneath all the stress. More gang members could've shown up and delayed the paramedics until the woman died on the street.

And then my mind went to the repercussions of the woman's death. Did she have a husband? Children? I couldn't recall a wedding ring, but I hadn't been looking for one at the time. Would her husband mourn her and go into a depression? Would her children understand that they were never going to see their precious mother ever again? Would the woman's elderly parents come to terms that their daughter had died?

So many things ran through my head and let all those guilty and horrifying thoughts tear up my conscious because I deserved it for not being prepared. Right when someone was depending on me I hadn't been able to come through. I could've hurt the woman more than helped.

I closed my black eyes and took a shaky breath as I recalled the agony that had rolled across the woman's face. It was worse than the 'agony' I'd given those gang boys. That had been real pain that I couldn't have faulted her for. I purposely called up the image of those blue orbs filled with panic and fear. I purposefully called up the helplessness and nervousness I'd felt.

I hadn't known what to do, and that was what scared me. It was why I read so many books. Nonfiction, fiction, mystery, biographies; I read them all in hopes to make up for the school I never went to, but it looked like that my own studies had fallen through where it should've helped.

I pushed my hood back and looked up at the now star filled black sky. "I don't know if anyone's up there," I said, my eyes moving from star to glowing star. "But if there really is a powerful being like 'God' up there and you can hear me, help me out here please. Let me put what little I can do and know to use. Let me help people where others can't. Let me help and save a few lives. Let me actually be able to be of use."

With that said I laid back with my hands under my head and my braid safely away from the dirty ground on my body. I observed the stars and tried to make sense of them. Sadly, I couldn't. Yet another thing I was lacking in knowledge. I could make out the big dipper like everyone else could, but that was all. Or was that the little dipper? I didn't know.

I looked at one star in particular and thought about why I had named myself after that lights that hung in the sky every night. When I was little I hadn't really known that I should have a name until I heard a mother playfully playing a name game with her little boy. That little boy is probably much older now, but the missing feeling had filled my small heart all those years ago. Worse than what it was then and was now to the point that it nearly drove me insane. It was on one such night like this around 14 years ago that I looked up at the black sky with my equally black eyes and looked at one star. I remember thinking that although there were so many stars in the sky, they all seemed alone. Like me.

So I named myself Dark Star, or Star for short. It was silly to name yourself Dark Star instead of Bright Star or something of that sort, but the name had resonated with something in my heart and had felt right, so I had kept all these years.

I sighed and couldn't tear my eyes from that one star in the sky. It was another few moments before I frowned in confusion and squinted my eyes at the speck of light. "I have to be seeing things," I said aloud. "There's no way that star is…" I trailed off as I slowly rose to my feet and my mind finally believed what I was seeing.

The star was getting bigger and brighter.

My heart began to race as the star got bigger and bigger by the second. And then my heart almost stopped when I realized that the star wasn't getting bigger.

It was getting closer.

And it was heading for me.

By the time that that thought registered in my head it was too late to move. The flaming streak of something clipped a few trees before taking them out altogether and then crashing smack dab in the middle of the clearing. I held back a small scream as I felt the massive shockwave from the crash sent me flying back through the air as a thundering _BOOM! _assaulted my ears.

I blinked the black spots from my vision and sat up seconds later from where I'd been flung a little into the tree line. I took in the scene before me with wide disbelieving eyes. There were small fires visible among the grass and trees were splintered and toppled clear across the clearing, but that wasn't what held my attention.

My eyes were focused on the lump of black…something that rested only thirty feet from me. I got on to surprisingly steady feet and approached the something without a second thought of running away. Something in my heart just pushed me forward and said that I _needed_ to do this. I've never needed to do something more than I did at that moment. I felt like if I had the ability to turn and run away that my heart would rip apart. For once, that ever present feeling of something missing abated in my heart to the point that I could hardly feel it at all.

The something that had crashed was big. It was about fifteen feet long and six or seven feet wide. It was like a pill in shape. As I got close I realized the thing wasn't really black: it was more of a dark grey or blue and had a couple weird swirling pictures drawing on the 'pill' thing. They were probably the size of my hand or both of my hands put together and something inside of me said that those swirling figures were words in another language.

I was about ten feet away when I heard a faint humming start up and I froze. The humming picked up in volume and the pill shook for a brief moment before it began to move.

Before it began to transform.

**So…. This was just a chapter to introduce my OC Dark Star. I'm not trying to create a Mary Sue, but like I said in the beginning, I began writing this a while ago, so please forgive. I promise Dark Star will change quickly.**

**Quick note: I've never been to Chicago so I have no idea what it's like. Yes, I chose the location because of the third movie and it will come into play later on in the story. I do things for a reason. Most of the time.**

**I'd really appreciate it if you left a review. Please tell me what you think and I'll get back to you! Thank you for reading!**

**Seer**


	2. Chapter 2

**So. Chapter Two. Here's a note for you guys. I am not a hacker or a repair person nor do I have any experience with gangs or anything like that. This is all just stuff that logically makes sense to me in these categories. Again, I apologize for a Mary Sue moment here in this chapter, but I swear it's the last one in the story… I think. 99% positive. The problems that bring about the Mary Sue moment will come back much later in the story when we delve more into Dark Star's past, but that's in the future. And lastly I apologize for my impatience. You'll see what I mean when you read.**

**And I want to thank **_**Cyber Sweetie, Fallen Angel 1243, **_**and **_**Bee4ever**_** for reviewing already. I didn't think I would get reviews on only the first chapter. Thank you very much you three! Now, on with the story. **

**Chapter Two**

I stared at the shifting 'pill' in awe. For a second I thought I should be shocked at something as impossible as some huge thing falling out of the sky and then beginning to transform, but my mind did what it always did. It adapted. I may not believe in a 'God' or a higher deity, but I believed in what I could see and touch, and I was _seeing_ this. I may not be touching it at the moment, seeing how it was in the middle of transforming, but my mind was convinced. It had an "Eh. Good enough for me" moment.

So many things were happening at the same time. There wasn't one part shifting at a time: the entire thing was shifting and moving and changing at the same time and I could feel a headache coming on from trying to memorize everything that was happening.

It only took ten to fifteen seconds for it to finish, and, in the spot where the 'pill' once was, was a metal being that looked…humanoid in shape. I ran my eyes over the form slowly, trying to burn the image of what I was seeing into my brain so I could remember at anytime I wished. The only word I could think of to describe it was 'alien'. It looked so…futuristic with its sleek metal-looking exterior that curved beautifully here and elegantly there. It really did look like a human; if that human was a robot. I could see that the sleek dark metal didn't cover the entire body. In places like the joints I could see what looked like to be wires and gears, but it was dark and I couldn't see very well.

I noticed that the thing was sitting in the gash in the earth that it had created. It was sitting with one leg half drawn up to its chest and kept itself upright with the hands it had placed behind it. From how it was sitting I could see that it was thicker around the chest area, considerably so. It almost looked like the over-sized chest would be a hindrance for movement if it wasn't for how…right it looked.

My eyes finally wandered away from the fascinating body up to the head and face of the thing. The first thing I saw was the bright glow of two blue lights where the eyes would be on a human. And by the way they flashed on and off I assumed that they were the eyes of the creature and that it was blinking. The eyes cast a soft glow over the rest of the features of its face and I could make out a somewhat flat nose, lips, cheeks, and a forehead.

_This thing really is like a robotic human_, I thought with awe. _It's so strange. How something that's most likely alien could so closely relate humans in looks._ And it had to be alien. The thing had fallen out of the sky and there had been no clue, no _hint_, to some foreign country or the USA working on anything close to what was before me in any of my snooping into the government.

I took a hesitant step closer and the blue lights, its eyes, flickered over to me. "Hey," I called softly, holding up my hands instinctively in the universal gesture of I-mean-you-no-harm.

But the motion didn't appear to be universal because the thing's eyes seemed to widen. It tried to get to its feet while saying these deep…sounds and clicks and whirls. I frowned in confusion and absently memorized the sounds and the sequence, for I thought it might be a language, and watched as the thing only got half way to its feet before falling back onto its butt. I stopped my approach as it held up an arm as if to fend off an attack and I realized that the huge mechanical being was looking at me in fear.

I felt a pain in my chest when the thing tried to get up a second time to only fall back again, still voicing those strange whirls and clicks. I realized by the third attempt that the thing wasn't just failing to get up out of fear and haste. It couldn't stand. It couldn't get on its feet, or whatever you wanted to call the spread out four digits that looked like toes. They kind of reminded me of a bird's foot in design, but with more digits and thicker more human like toes.

"Hey, it's okay. Shh… I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay. You don't have to be scared. Nothing can hurt something as huge as you, big guy. Just calm down. That's right. Calm down." I spoke when it was apparent that it had given up trying to stand up and used the most calming soothing voice I possessed. I went on repeating the same thing over and over again until it stopped trying to scoot away from me after creating twenty feet of distance. When it seemed to be listening to me I asked slowly, "Can you understand me?" Those blue lights blinked and the defensive arm lowered a bit and I could almost see the gears or whatever was inside his head, turn as he thought.

I was about to repeat my question when he responded. At first he made a clicking sound before saying, "Yes." A part of my mind filed away that clicking noise under the assumption that it meant 'Yes'.

It was my turn to blink as he suddenly switched to English I could recognize. I switched my label of 'it' to 'he' because, one, it's cruel to call an obviously sentient being 'it', and, two, his voice when he had spoken had been deep and masculine. I nodded and held my hands away from my sides where he could see it. I could see tiny movements in those strange blue eyes and knew he was looking me over. "It's okay, big guy. I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Star. What's yours?" I wanted to smack my forehead at that moment. I had just asked an alien being what his name was. Why couldn't I have asked where he was from? Why not what he was doing on Earth?

The big buy didn't seem to mind. If anything he looked confused, if that small frown was anything to go by, though how he could frown when his mouth was metal was beyond me. "Name?" he repeated. "What is…name?" I could tell by his pause and thoughtful look that he was struggling to form correct English sentences.

I took a small step forward to test his reaction. He only glanced down where my foot was, recognizing that I was coming closer, but didn't seem to mind other than mild apprehension. "A name is what you call yourself," I explained. "I call myself Star, so my name is Star."

The mechanical being nodded slightly. "Then my name is Optimus Prime."

I began to take regular steps towards the being as I said, "What are you doing here, Optimus?"

Optimus shifted a little from where he sat and his frown deepened. There was a pause of silence before he locked his ethereal blue eyes on me. I instantly felt smaller, but I also felt something in my chest loosen, as if in relief. "I…I'm not sure," he replied.

I frowned too and stood up taller as my eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You don't know?" I reiterated. "How can you not know?"

Optimus' blue eyes looked away from me and up to the sky as he shifted again, as if he was nervous or anxious. "I…just…" He looked back down at me with a small scowl on his face. Again, how can he do that? He switched from English back to that clicking and whirling. This time he emitted a quick series of quiet whirls at different pitches. I didn't have to understand his language to know that he was cursing. Another sound filed away for later. "This English is difficult," he muttered finally.

My curiosity perked and I asked without thinking, "How do you know English?" I wanted to curse this time at asking impulsively.

"The World Wide Web," he answered simply, and I 'Ah'ed in understanding. If anyone understood that you could learn anything on the internet, it was me.

There were only several feet between me and Optimus' foot when I repeated my earlier question. "So, how do you not know what you're doing here?"

He looked uneasy again when he responded after a hesitant pause. "I just do not. I cannot access my memory archives."

"Your memory archives?" I stopped only five feet away from the mechanical being. Optimus wordlessly pointed to his head, where there was a deep dent about the size of a medium-sized dog. I frowned in thought as I considered him. "Can't you fix yourself?"

There was a moment where the being thought and processed my words before he shook his head. "No. I am not…trained to heal. And even if I was, any knowledge would be…inaccessible in my memory archives. I can't remember anything before crashing."

"So you have no way of knowing how to help yourself or if there are others like you around to help you?" I asked absently, the wheels in my head turning as I glanced at the wires visible in between the metal plating. It was obvious that he was at least a little electrical.

"No. I don't."

I took a deep breath before saying, "I might be able to help you."

Those blue eyes narrowed as they looked me over again from my toes to the top of my head, and I knew not the slightest detail about my appearance escaped him, but whether he understood what he saw was another thing. "Why would you help me?" he asked cautiously. "From what I have read on the World Wide Web, you humans should run at the sight of me. I am bigger and could hurt you."

I met his blue eyes and felt something deep and resonating inside me click a little. Those blue eyes looked old, like they had seen a lot. Even if Optimus couldn't remember anything, his body did. I said the first thing that came to mind, something I seemed to be doing a lot in the past five minutes. "Because you need it."

Those eyes blinked in, what I assumed was, surprise, but that look disappeared as he frowned again at me. "How do you think to help me? Any technology you have here on this Earth is primitive compared to the technology I carry."

I shrugged and spread my hands in a helpless gesture. "You're right there. But I'm good when it comes to anything electronic. And you look like you're made up of a lot of electronics. And if you need anything to be replaced, then I could try to modify something to work. Probably won't work, but I could give it a shot."

Those blue eyes looked over me again before slowly saying, "You think you could be of use to helping me?" It didn't escape my notice that he wasn't stumbling over his English anymore.

I shrugged, "Like you said. You're way more advanced than anything on Earth. I could take a look and see if it would only take a simple fix or if it's something that's totally beyond me. I won't make any promises."

Optimus thought for a moment before nodding, "Alright. I will go with you." He then looked down at the ground with a scowl before taking a deep breath (did he need to breathe?) and tried to get up again. I took quick steps backwards so that I wasn't kicked or squished by his massive foot. He was obviously shaky and unsure as he maneuvered his feet underneath himself and slowly rose to his astounding full height. Optimus took a small step backwards to keep his balance as I stared up in awe at the mechanical being. He was an amazing thirty feet of machinery, and he stood with an air of confidence and leadership. He looked proud.

His blue eyes looked down, down, down at me and asked me, "In which direction do you wish to travel?"

I shook myself out of my awe and spun on heel to head back into the direction of Chicago. I heard a surprisingly quiet _thump thump_ of Optimus' footsteps behind me. There was a sizable pause between each thump as Optimus walked slowly with his long legs. I looked back and saw how close he was and broke out into an easy jog so he didn't have to walk too slowly. As I wove in and out of the trees, I heard the quiet rustle of leaves as Optimus moved his way through the tall trees and I thought it was very convenient that all the trees were Optimus' height, if not taller.

It was ten minutes later that I came to a stop at the edge of the tree line. I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of the road only twenty feet away from me and the lights of Chicago in the distance. I then remembered a very important detail. "How are you going to hide?"

"Hide? Like Ironhide?" he asked in confusion and a bit of hope.

I frowned and turned to look up at the massive being. "Ironhide? What's that?"

Optimus frowned too and turned his head to look up at the night sky, as if the answer was up there. "I do not know, but I think it is 'who' not 'what'."

'Who'? I mouthed before the idea came to mind. "Do you think it's someone you know? Like you? Like an ally?"

"I do not know," he repeated softly, finally tearing his eyes form the sky. He looked deeply concerned about this 'Ironhide' and I decided to leave him to it. He probably knew more, even if it was subconscious, about 'Ironhide'.

"Well, anyway, I meant hide as in not attract attention. To avoid being seen. That kind of hide," I explained. Optimus whirled and clicked softly as I turned to look back at the city. I crossed my arms and frowned in thought. "If we can't hide you in some way, then I would be hurting you more than helping you. People won't have a good reaction to seeing you."

"You seem to be reacting well to me," he pointed out in that deep voice of his.

I shrugged and glanced up at those glowing eyes, "I don't think it's really sunk in that I'm helping an alien robot yet. Give me a day and I'll have a delayed revelation."

"Oh." I heard the… anxious tone in his voice.

"What's the matter, Optimus?" I asked, turning around again to face him fully.

He hesitated before answering, "You said that you would realize you are helping an alien in a day. That means you are going to run away like all the people do in these…movies."

I smiled a bit and shook my head, "No I'm not, Optimus. I wouldn't abandon you like that. And don't take movies as a credible source of information. Those people who were running away were acting like they were afraid. You know, pretending." I frowned and reached back to rub my neck where I was starting to get a crick from looking up so high and for so long. "Well, they'd still run away from you if they saw you. And that brings us back to hiding you. If we can't hide you then we're screwed."

"Screwed?" Optimus repeated.

I frowned in thought on how to explain that word before telling him, "You can find a definition in the _Urban Dictionary_."

He clicked in response and we fell into silence as we tried to figure out the situation. I glanced briefly to my left when I saw head lights coming down the road. Stepping back further into the trees, I pulled up my hood and muttered, "We'd better move back until we figure out how to hide you." It was a blue semi without a trailer. It looked like it had custom red flames done on it.

Behind me I heard the soft sound of an electrical hum and then the sound of machinery moving and snapping into place. I spun around in time to see some metal come seamlessly together and to see a small thumb sized square face looking thing slide up the grill to rest where the hood ornament would be. I gaped, to be honest. The weird, futuristic looking, thirty foot tall mechanical robot with amnesia was gone. In its place was the semi I just saw drive down the road. I whipped my head to the side to see that semi still driving down the road. I looked back to the red semi in front of me. "Optimus?" I called softly.

The engine came alive with a deep rumble and Optimus' voice floated from the truck, "Would this be a sufficient disguise?" I nodded, dumbstruck. The driver's side door popped open of its own accord and Optimus said, "Then let us be on our way before we attract attention." I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but I thought I caught a hint of amusement in his voice. I scowled at him and I got a quiet chuckle in response that corresponded with the deeper rumble of the engine.

"Suddenly you're a funny guy," I muttered as I walked over to the open door and climbed the four feet into the seat. "How else was I supposed to react? You suddenly changed into a very normal seeming semi without me looking."

The truck began to roll away from the tree line and got up on to the road. I put my hands lightly on the wheel to at least give the illusion that I was driving through the half transparent windows. There was another rumble that I assumed was Optimus' laugh. "I thought you would react well, like you did with my other form."

I sighed when I looked at the clock. "There's only so much a person can take at midnight."

"My apologies, Star," he murmured quietly, thinking I was serious.

I smiled a bit and stroked the wheel unconsciously. I felt a small part of me glow in pleasure at the sound of Optimus saying my name. It sounded so pleasant and…right to my ears. "Don't be sorry, Optimus. You've made this the most interesting night of my life."

There was a pause before Optimus asked, "Where are we going?"

I gave him the directions to the tunnels before frowning in thought and asking, "What do you call yourself, Optimus?"

"How do you mean? I already told you that I call myself Optimus Prime," he replied. It was difficult to read his voice, like it had been for the entire night, but something in me just seemed to be able to pick up inflections and tones and give them emotions. Right now he was confused.

I shook my head, "No. Not your name. I mean as a species. Like I'm a human being."

"Oh. I am a Cybertronian mech from the planet Cybertron."

An alarm went off in my head. "I thought you couldn't remember anything," I accused suspiciously.

"I can't," he responded patiently, and I sat back with an eyebrow raised, waiting to hear his explanation. "There is information that I just know. My name, how to scan my alt form, and how to transform for instance," he said. "It's just something…that comes naturally." He paused, obviously struggling for words to describe his knowledge. "Do you understand?"

I drummed my fingers in thought, "You mean like instincts?"

"In a way, yes."

"So, that name, 'Ironhide', was something you just knew, too?"

Another pause. "No. I think I may have connected to my memory archives for a nano-klik."

I sat forward excitedly. "That's a good thing, Optimus. That means the damage to your head shouldn't be too bad." I was silent as I recalled something he had said. "What's a nano-klik, a mech, and an alt form?"

"A nano-klik is roughly equivalent to one Earth second. A mech is to Cybertronians as males are to humans. And an alt form is a Cybertronian's second form. We have our bipedal form and then our transportation form. This semi is my alt form at the present time," he explained as he turned off the road and on to a busier smaller road that was the outskirts of Chicago.

My brain was eagerly soaking up all this information. "You mean you can change your alt form? You can just randomly scan and change into another car?"

"To a degree," he corrected. "I am a large mech so I have to have a relatively large alt form. Our alt form depends on our size."

I thought for a moment, replaying everything he'd said in the past few minutes over in my head, and brought up another question. "If you're a mech, or male, of your species, than what do you call the females?"

"Femmes."

"What are the differences between the two?"

"Mechs are generally larger and bulkier while femmes are more small and sleek."

"So, like mechs are built for strength and femmes are built for speed," I stated. I was vaguely aware of street lights flashing across Optimus' blue and red hood and across my scarred hands regularly, but I wasn't really aware of where we were. I figured that if Optimus needed help that he would ask for it. Plus I felt like I didn't need to worry. I felt like Optimus would protect me from any danger.

"Essentially," he agreed. "But we can alter ourselves to specialize in different areas, such as stealth or battle." I nodded and searched for another question, but came up empty handed. Optimus picked up my pause and asked, "Have you run out of questions,…" he whirled and clicked and I got the sense that he was amused again. He gave me my next question.

"No. What is that…language?" I flapped a hand at the radio, not quite sure what to call it.

"That is Cybertronian."

I felt stupid. Of course it was Cybertronian. Why had I even asked? Stupid, stupid, stupid. For the first time in a long time I felt my cheeks heat slightly in embarrassment. I didn't like the feeling at all. "So what did you say just then?" I asked, trying to keep my embarrassment out of my voice.

If Optimus picked up my mood he either gave no sign that he did or just didn't hear it at all. "There isn't an exact translation, but the equivalent in English would be 'small one' or 'little one'," he answered, and I was distantly aware of the street lights getting farther apart and that the buildings were turning into those of the poor ring.

"Little one," I repeated quietly before frowning slightly in concentration. I replayed the sounds he made in my head before opening my mouth and trying to imitate him. Emphasis on trying. I only got a single second of sound out before my vocals seized from the strain and I had to clear my throat to avoid going into a coughing fit.

"You're organic vocal cords are not made to speak Cybertronian," Optimus said, his deep voice drifting over his speakers. "You would only inflict injury on yourself if you tried to speak it."

I scowled at the radio, since it was coming over the speakers and the radio controlled the speakers, and said, "That's not about to stop me. I'll learn Cybertronian."

"But you are physically incapable of doing so," Optimus pointed out calmly, though I got the feeling that he was slightly confused. By what, I had no clue.

I patted his wheel like I sometimes saw parents pat their children's heads. "At the moment I'm probably not able to, but humans are able to train ourselves do certain things, like how men can teach themselves to ignore pain or how swimmers can train their bodies to hold their breaths longer. It just takes time."

Optimus was silent before he murmured quietly, "Humans are so strange." I don't think he meant to say that bit out loud, and I debated whether to say something to that comment before deciding not to. It was supposed to be his thought and, therefore, not supposed to be commented on.

I looked up as Optimus came to a soft stop. Looking up, I saw his bright headlights rest on the many signs in front of my tunnel entrance. "Is this where you wished to go?" he asked. I got the feeling again that he was confused.

I ignored his confusion and opened the door to drop the distance to the ground. "Yup," I answered as I shut his door. I patted the side of his big engine. "Please turn off your lights, Optimus. We don't want people to know that we're here." I cast a quick look around at the windows and the alleys to see if anyone was looking at us. I went up to the signs as Optimus obligingly turned off his headlights. I was temporarily blinded, going from bright light to almost no light, but I worked as fast as I could to move the heavy wooden and metal signs while Optimus silently watched. I ignored the splinters or small cuts I got from moving the heavy signs and waved the semi through when the path was cleared. As soon as he was down the ramp and partially hidden in the inky blackness that was my tunnel, I moved all the signs back into their places. The whole thing took about four minutes, and, as I walked backwards down the ramp, I cast one more look around for silent watchers before disappearing into the darkness.

I trailed a light hand down Optimus' side so I knew where he was and walked a few paces in front of him before calling over my shoulder, "Follow me. It's not far." His engine came to life from where it had been puttering in park and he slowly came after me. I figured he was able to see in the dark if he was able to follow my silent feet. It was so strange to hear something like an engine down here in the tunnels where it was silent with the exception of my music and cursing. It sounded much louder than what I knew it was, but it was comforting where it should've made me tense. I should've been high strung at the fact that anyone would be able to hear Optimus and I wouldn't know it, but instead I was calmed at the sound of the deep, thrumming, constant sound of his engine. It was soothing.

I pressed the button to turn on my light and moved out of the door way despite being half-blinded by the harsh lights so Optimus could come in all the way. Blinking, I watched as the big semi drove slowly into my cavern. He rolled a few feet forward before beginning to transform without saying a word. Awe still hit me hard. It all looked so graceful and complicated as the entire semi started changing at the same time, and I had no clue where which part of him went where, or came from in this case, as he seemed to suddenly be standing there in my carven. Luckily there was a good five or ten feet between the roof and his head so he didn't have to stoop. Neither of us said anything as his blue eyes roamed around my home.

I observed his new form as he was distracted. It seemed as if the plating on the truck stuck with him when he transformed because he wasn't a sleek dark grey anymore; instead, he was covered in red and blue plating that had been on his alt form. The windshield and front of his alt form was now on his chest and that was the only part on the semi I recognized with the exception of the tires that ran up the outside of either leg. He had an assortment of red and blue in various places, and despite the seeming randomness he looked regal. Powerful. He looked like someone in charge. His face was more human looking now. Where a human would have hair he had a sleek blue…helmet for the lack of a better word, and said helmet still had that big dent in it.

I wondered briefly where that dent was on his alt form before his aged blue eyes turned back towards me. "From what I'm seeing on the World Wide Web this is not a normal human dwelling," he stated.

I resisted the urge to shift my weight in a nervous reaction. What would Optimus think if he knew that I was living on the streets? That I got into fights regularly with the gangs? That I struggled to find food every day? Something in my heart wanted me to just tell him, to tell him everything so that there was nothing hidden between the two of us. I ignored that new part of me and shrugged nonchalantly, "Home is home."

He nodded and looked over my cavern again, "It is…unique." I felt that new part of me still. It didn't know if Optimus approved of my home and I found myself holding my breath for his verdict as well, which was ridiculous. "I find it very interesting," he murmured. His blue eyes fell on my project wall. The giant mech took a few steps closer and I saw a horizontal blue light run over each. After a brief flash of confusion, I figured he was scanning my projects to see what they were.

Leaving him to figure out what I was creating, I strolled over to my spy wall and entered my password to unlock it from its sleep. I glanced at my security views and felt something in me relax a bit when nothing came up and no alarm went off. Optimus' engine noise hadn't attracted any attention.

"What is that?"

I spun in my office chair and jumped a little at the big mech who was now towering over me. I hadn't even heard him come up behind me. Blinking away the surprise, I saw his eyes looking over my sixteen monitors. "Oh. These are my computers. Anything I want to look up and find I can on these," I answered.

Optimus knelt to one knee, lowering his height to about fifteen to twenty feet, and looked at my center eight monitors and their security footage. "Why do you have cameras set up? And those heat and motion detectors?"

I frowned at the Cybertronian, "How did you know about my security?"

"I sensed them on the way in. Or at least the sensors that saw us on our way in," he answered absently, still looking at my footage.

I 'oh'ed and tugged my hood further down my face. Of course he would be able to sense my technology. It was more primitive than him. "Well, I have the cameras up to see if anyone comes anywhere near me. Obviously," I finally replied.

"Why would you be concerned about others coming here?" he asked, turning his blue eyes fully on to me.

I raised an eyebrow he probably couldn't see and responded, "I'm not supposed to be down here. No one is allowed down here. That's why those signs were there."

He frowned and I finally saw how he was able to do that here in the better light. His face was made up of a dozen or so metal plates and they shifted when his lips moved or he showed his emotion. "Why are you prohibited to enter these tunnels?"

I snorted and scooted my chair to my right, causing Optimus to shift his foot a little to get out of my way. I stopped in front of one of my media computers and tapped in the keys to bring up an old news article. "Why indeed?" I repeated with a touch of sarcasm. I looked back at Optimus and waved a hand at the article on my screen, "The city seems to think that the tunnels aren't safe to be in."

I saw those blue eyes narrow as he focused on the document before he straightened a little and looked at the wall and roofs of my cavern. "From the documents and programs I'm finding on the World Wide Web this space is structurally sound." He seemed confused as he looked back at the article as I wheeled down my table to come to a stop in front of my government computers. Optimus looked at me and asked, "Why would this place be deemed unsafe when it obviously isn't?"

I spread my hands in a helpless gesture and shrugged before slouching in my chair, "May be the city got crappy contractors, or whoever evaluates buildings, to take a look down here. The point is that they don't know anything about these tunnels and I plan on keeping them in the dark."

Optimus nodded his understanding before his eyes landed on my government computer. He looked at me in silent question and I smiled as I straightened in my seat. "This, Optimus, is my pride and joy," I answered as I motioned to the two screens. "You are currently looking at any and all information the US government possess."

He blinked in confusion before he got a slightly faraway look in his eyes. I don't know how that was possible since his eyes were mechanical but that new part of me seemed to know that Optimus' attention was elsewhere at the moment. That new part of me seemed to be very loud when it came to Optimus. The mech blinked again as he came back to the here and now and looked at me in surprise. "This information is behind a very thick and complicated security," he stated. "How did you get through it?"

I smiled a little and could help but preen a small bit. "Like I said, I'm good with pretty much anything electrical and that includes hacking. Besides skill, it took time. It took me about five years to finally get through all that security." I stilled for a moment as I processed what Optimus had said. Looking up at him with a frown, I questioned, "How do you know about the government's security?"

He shrugged a bit, and that small part gave me the feeling that he purposely did that human gesture. "I just hacked into the government like you did," he said casually.

I felt my eyes widen at his answer. "What do you mean you just hacked into the government?" I demanded. "You only spaced out for a few seconds."

He waved a large metal finger at my government monitors, "I hacked into your computers and followed the trail past the digital defenses." He turned his blue eyes down at me. "Don't you humans hack into many things digital?" he asked innocently.

I blinked hard and shook my head slightly, still in disbelief, "Yes, but not the government main frame. That's a whole different ballpark than a laptop or a website. I'm probably the only person who is hacked in right now. The government is constantly upgrading their programs to protect themselves and detect hacks that are already in place, like mine. The fact that you did it in only a few seconds is…" I blew out a breath and met blue eyes with black and let my eyes show my astonishment. "That's incredible. Even if I tried to follow my trail like you did it would take me a week or two because there are defenses that could still catch me." I rubbed my mouth and glanced at my innocent government screen. "Amazing," I murmured.

"Why would you do something that is illegal?" Optimus inquired.

I glanced up at him to see if he was asking so to judge me or criticize me for my unlawful actions, but all I saw was a neutral face with no emotion. That part in me that seemed to be able to read the unreadable Optimus Prime told me that he was just curious and had no other intention. I listened to it. "I started hacking into the government main frame to test my skills when I was younger," I answered slowly, training my eyes on the screen instead of the piercing blue of Optimus' eyes. "I'd been fixing and looking after electronics for all of my life and I'd been hacking for three-quarters of that time, and I wanted to see how good I was. To test myself. See, no one is supposed to be able to successfully get into the government without being very good at what they do, and even after that their hack was detected soon enough. And to hack through the mainframe took me only five years. For those other hackers it takes twice as long."

There was a tense moment of silence and I mentally prepared myself for the yelling that would ensue. Just like before I ran away from home and permanently moved down here into my cavern. Memories played over in my head and I shut my eyes to try and push them away, thankful my hood was up so Optimus couldn't see the action. For a brief instance I heard the booming male voice that was always furious, I felt the heart stopping fear, I saw the big dark figure stalking angrily towards me. For a moment, I felt all of my scars tighten like they were going to burst open again and my mind recalled _every single_ memory of getting those scars. Of when pain was normal and blood gushing out of my small body was an everyday occurrence and something that was as constant as the Angry Man.

I stiffened as my world suddenly moved and shifted quickly and I tensed for the blow that was to come, because the Angry Man had just yanked me by my torn and tattered clothes to either hit me or throw my small body across the room again.

But it didn't come.

"Star."

I opened my eyes, I'd squeezed them shut without realizing it, and found myself level with two blue lights. It took me a moment to push all my memories behind its brick wall and start trying to piece together what had happened. My hands touched surprisingly warm metal and when I looked down I realized that I was sitting in Optimus' big hand and he was standing up now. I frowned as I comprehended that Optimus had somehow gotten me out of my office chair and thirty feet into the air without my knowledge.

"What happened, Star?" Optimus asked in his deep voice. He was unreadable as ever. The new part of me began to radiate a very, very faint feeling that I identified as concern and worry.

I wondered briefly how I could feel something that wasn't mine before answering, "Memories." I winced when I spoke without thinking. Someone as regal and important seeming as Optimus didn't need to know that he was in the lowly presence of street trash. Broken street trash at that.

"You're heartbeat and breathing rate accelerated a minute ago," Optimus said. His eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "You did not even respond when I picked you up or spoke your name. These are signs of a panic attack or flashback."

I raised an eyebrow at him, which he could probably see despite the shadows my hood created, and tried to make light of the situation. "I thought you said you weren't trained to heal, big guy."

His only reaction was a blink. The small piece inside of me didn't have anything to say about him for once. "I am trained to be a warrior," he agreed with a small nod and I stored that bit of information away quickly. "But the World Wide Web is a large source of information on humans." I nodded in understanding and controlled my outward expressions very well when Optimus asked, "What memories caused you to have such reactions?"

I considered not answering briefly before deciding that was a mean thing to do to the mech when he was concerned about me, at least that's what the small part of me said. I shrugged nonchalantly and answered truthfully, "Bad memories. But memories are the past." It was a truth, but a half truth. Not wanting to spend any more time on this subject, I searched for a change. The answer came in the form of the huge dent in Optimus' head. "Can I take a look at your head?" I asked, motioning to the dent.

Optimus blinked once and I identified that as a sign that he was thinking quickly, like he was acknowledging that I was changing the subject at that moment and he was letting it go. "Of course," he answered as he moved his hand closer to his shoulder where an exhaust pipe was sticking up vertically.

I cautiously hung on to that exhaust pipe and placed my feet on the plates so I didn't step on to the wires of varying size in between said plates. I noticed that each of the plates was incredibly thick: at least as thick as both my hands put together. I balanced on the edge of the plate that would be a shoulder blade on a human and looked at the huge dent that was now right in front of me. I frowned when I didn't see any seams that would indicate that something opened. "Is there some way you can open up so I can see inside?" I asked. Optimus made a single click that I assumed was "Yes" in Cybertronian and I mimicked it easily as a panel close to the dent and to my right opened out of nowhere. "Does that click you made mean 'yes'?" I asked. He made the clicking sound again and the small part of me said that Optimus was amused. I rapped a knuckle on his metal and muttered, "Smart ass."

I peered in and gasped. I couldn't believe my eyes, which were currently stinging with ignored tears.

Optimus shifted a little, jolting me, though I didn't notice. "What is wrong?" he inquired, though I could tell he was nervous. At that moment I unconsciously accepted that small, new part as a piece of me and quit thinking it as a separate entity that somehow read Optimus easily.

I blinked and opened and closed my mouth, at a loss for words. I was finally able to squeak out, "Holy shit." I took a deep breath, but couldn't pull my eyes from the inside of his head.

"What can you see?" the mech repeated and I tell he was getting more nervous by the second.

That shook me partially out of my stupor, at least enough to breathe out the word "Beauty" in an answer. Optimus' relief was almost mistaken for my own, but I ignored the strange faint double emotions happening inside me and ran my eyes over his 'brain'. "It's so…beautiful," I gushed quietly, my fingers itching to figure out how everything worked. "I've never seen anything so complicated and powerful. The amount of work that would have to go in to create this must have been enormous."

I could tell Optimus was amused and I thought he might be smiling at that moment, but I wasn't about to pull my head away from this heaven to check. "We are Sparked, not created, Star," he corrected.

The promise of new interesting information was enough to pull me away from Optimus' head to frown down at the side of Optimus' face. "Sparked? What do you mean by that?" I asked.

Optimus' head turned a bit so he could see me out of the corner of his eye before he answered, "It is a term used when a Cybertronian is onlined for the first time as a sparkling. That is like a baby to us. The thing that keeps us alive is our Sparks: it's the equivalent to a human heart. Although it does not pump around our bodily fluids like humans do: we have pumps that do that, we cannot live without our Sparks." I saw his hand move to his chest and held on to the exhaust pipe so I could lean out a bit and see what he was doing. He grasped the hand-width gap between the windshields the covered his chest and pulled them apart a little and I saw a brief flash of bright blue-white light as well as heard a loud buzz of electricity before he released the windshields and the sound and light disappeared. One large finger tapped his chest as he looked at me again. "Should my Spark be extinguished or ended, then I will be offlined. I will be dead."

I nodded and silently wished I had some sort of paper around so I could write all this information down, like how those kids in school took notes. I cocked my head to the side and thought over his words. "What do you call the different parts of your body? Like this is my hand and this is my eye," I motioned to each part of my body as I said them.

Optimus blinked, thinking, before answering, "I could go into very deep detail on the mechanics of my body, but I will give you a brief overview. These are my pedes, my legs, hips, abdomen, chassis and spark chamber underneath that, my servos, shoulders, my armor, my neck with my voice processor inside, my mouth, my olfactory processors, my optics, my audio sensors, my processors, and my helm." As he said each term he pointed to the corresponding body part, going in the order of his feet, legs, hips, stomach, his chest and where his spark was underneath, his hands, shoulders, his blue and red plating, his neck and his voice box, which wasn't visible, his metal mouth, his slightly squashed nose, his eyes, his brain, and then the sleek, blue, dented metal that hide his processor.

I mentally catalogued the information before turning back to the open panel in his helm to look at his processor again. This time I didn't let myself get distracted by the beautiful circuitry and looked a bit to the left where the dent was coming in. I could see more than one wire not connected to anything and I looked around briefly before sighing. "I'm sorry, Optimus," I murmured as I pulled out. Meeting his blue optics with my black eyes, I shook my head. "As much as I'd love to help you I can't tell where which wire goes where or where your memory archives are. It's too complicated for me to fix and I feel that if I try I'd only hurt you more than you already are. Sorry."

I got the feeling that he understood: that he didn't resent me for my inability to help him. Optimus moved his servo up to his shoulder and I stepped on to the living metal without being asked to. "It is fine, Star," he replied. "It is enough that you tried to help me."

I shifted my weight to keep my balance as Optimus slowly moved his servo with me standing upright on it until I was level with his optics again. It probably wasn't smart, but what the hell? I knew that he'd catch me before I fell the thirty feet to the concrete ground.

My mind realized that there was no reason for Optimus to stay here anymore. I mean, I knew that as soon as I fixed him, if I could, he would probably leave because I was no longer of use. And I now had no use for him. I bowed my head a little so there was no chance of the mech seeing my face. I had no clue what it looked like as something that felt like my heart was squeezed painfully hard and screamed out at the thought of Optimus leaving. _He can't leave! _my heart screamed over and over again, and nothing I tried to do to ignore that horrible scream worked. I finally got enough control of myself to ask the next question without my voice trembling or getting caught. "So what are you going to do now?"

My entire chest was in an incredibly tight invisible grip as I voiced that question, and for a second I thought I would break. Pulling my hands inside the overly long sleeves of my jacket, I fisted them in an effort to resist the urge to hug and rub my chest in hopes to alleviate the pain. I knew it wouldn't help and it would immediately give away my distress to the ever watchful optics of the mech. Struggling to keep my breathing even and not allow my muscles to tense up, I managed barely with the practice of years of hiding my emotions. Optimus was silent for a beat and the screaming and pain increased to the point where I almost gave in and hunched over in pain.

"Would it burden you if I wished to stay here with you?"

My eyes widened in surprise and the pain dulled before disappearing altogether. I lifted my head and couldn't help but look into those ocean blue optics in shock. My mouth opened but no words came out. My heart began to cheer in joy and I felt my lips twitch strongly before I gave in and honestly grinned at the alien robot. "How do you say 'no' in Cybertronian?" I asked, answering his question with one of my own.

I saw those deep optics soften a bit and I could tell through my faint empathy with the mechanical being that he was relieved as well as amused. Optimus made a deep whirling sound and I mimicked with only a bit of difficulty, since the odd sound strained my vocal cords, but not to the point that I had to stop.

"I am honored that you will allow me to stay here with you, Dark Star," he said, bowing his head a little.

Flustered at the suddenly formal manner, I flapped a hand at him and replied, "I'm happy you're staying too, you know. You'll make interesting company and such a marvel to study." I turned my eyes down to the wires I could see in between the armor around his wrist. "God, you're so much more advanced that I don't think I'll be able to understand you at all," I murmured.

Optimus chuckled, "Our time together will be interesting." I opened my mouth to reply, but I was cut off as I released a jaw cracking yawn.

I cocked my head to the side slightly at this strange cooing sound he made. "What does that mean?"

Optimus shrugged, "Nothing. It is simply a sound meant to comfort." I smiled slightly at him before smothering another yawn. "I believe it is time for you to sleep, **Little One**."

I tried to imitate him again but my vocals seized like they did the first time. Optimus lowered me to the ground wordlessly and I moved to the trash bag to pull out my pajamas. I looked over my shoulder and met Optimus' bright optics and said tersely, "Don't look." I know that he could access the internet, which was 90% porn websites, but I didn't want him to see how torn up my body was. How mangled and scarred I was. I didn't want to scare him away after just establishing that he was going to stay. Optimus respected my wish and his blue lights went dark. I hurriedly changed clothes and slipped on my light soft jacket to continue hiding my face, which was probably pointless, but it made me feel better.

As I climbed on to my couch, Optimus transformed back into his alt mode and I watched again in awe at something that was impossible be done so seamlessly and easily. "Good night, Star," Optimus called softly, and I froze for a moment at the phrase. No one had ever said that to me. Ever.

I resumed moving and covering myself in blankets before answering back, "Good night, Optimus." I reached above the couch to the second light button and pushed it to plunge the cavern into total darkness. I snuggled under the covers and closed my eyes. I fell asleep easily to the soft sound of Optimus' engine and the very faint feeling of content.

**So, yeah. To repeat I think this is really the last Mary Sue moment-chapter. I might have accidently left some later in the story, but I swear it was unintentional and I am hunting them down. Star's daddy issues will come up again in the future. I'll give you a guess on who he is. We all know and hate him. Whoever gets the answer right will either get a cyber-cookie or a sneak peek at the next chapter before I post next Saturday.**

**Thank you for reading and I'll have the next chapter up in a week. Please leave a review and tell me what you think.**

—**Seer**


	3. Chapter 3

**Here we go, Comrades! Into the last good fight we'll ever know! . . . JK. Lots more chapters to come. But here's the weekly update. Hope you enjoy. AND I'D LIKE TO REMIND THAT I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HACKING AND GANGS. I APOLOGIZE FOR BEING UNREALISTIC.**

**I don't own. Except for Dark Star. Don't sue and I won't bite.**

**Chapter Three**

I knew I was dreaming. I knew it and I let it happen.

_Ducking behind a corner, I flinched briefly at the loud explosion not too far from me. "Ratchet's gonna have a freakin' cow if my hearing gets damaged," I muttered as I leaned around the corner to see what was going on._

_ "He's going to have a cow either way once we're done here," replied a gasping voice of a man through the ear piece I had on. I'd forgotten I'd had a mike on that allowed anything I said to be heard by the rest of the team._

_ Another voice, a calm voice, came over the comm. next. "I honestly think Ironhide's going to be pissed when he realizes that he missed out." It was strange to hear something so calm mixed in with the explosions and gunfire going on around me. I laughed aloud, riding the adrenaline high the battle was giving and left my cover when I saw my target turn around to try and get rid of a rear attack. I slid over the hood of a half destroyed car and sprinted across the dangerous open ground. My heart sped up when my target turned back around._

_ The once calm voice came again, but this time he sounded panicked, "Get out of there, kid!"_

_ I dove to the side just as my target fired a blast that turned the area I had just been in into a crater. Swearing quietly, I scrambled to move as the thing moved to blast me into oblivion again. "Gimme an opening!" I yelled through my mike as I rolled again, thankful for all the times Ironhide had put me under constant fire so I had practice with evasion. As I dodged and generally moved as if my life depended on it, which it did, I was working my way closer and closer. It was annoying that the giant black mech with glowing red optics refused to be distracted by the gunfire and sabot rounds, but I was able to finally make a dive for his pedes. "Shoot the chassis!" I shouted as I climbed up the moving Cybertronian. It was trying desperately to get me off its body so he could shoot me without damaging itself. "The chest! The chest!"_

_ I heard someone shouting for sabot rounds to be aimed at the chest as I lifted myself away from the grasping metal servos. I'd just made it past the mech's hips when I heard the telltale sound of sabot rounds being fired. Clinging for dear life, I rode out the jerks and stumbles as the mech tried to keep from falling over due to the hits he was taking._

_He wasn't a smart one, this one. He should've gone for the sabot rounds from the first moment we engaged him, so that there was hardly anything that would damage him. But no. He seemed to just attack at random._

_ I unsheathed the glowing gold sword from its place strapped to my back and drove it into the back of the mech, right between the armor plating. The mech roared out in pain and renewed its efforts to grab me, but I was already on the move, scaling the shifting metal and wires with one hand. When I reached his shoulders, I saw a servo coming closer, right on target to grab me. I shouted a war cry and sliced through half the cords running up and down the powerfully thick neck. Hot, pink liquid sprayed everywhere as I dropped away, falling like rain from the dying mech's body._

I blinked open my eyes and sat up right quickly, grasping my chest to calm my racing heart. It wasn't that I was afraid: it just felt like I'd…just won a nearly impossible fight. I took a deep breath and blinked and the total darkness, letting the cool, nothingness calm down my hyperactive brain. After a minute or two of just sitting there on the couch I sighed and swung my legs over the side to stand up. The concrete was cold against my bare feet, but I ignored it in favor to scooping up the clothes I'd set out last night and using my mental map of my cavern to head to the bathroom.

I have absolutely no clue why the city would build such large tunnels and caverns underground and put in communal bathrooms here and there. I couldn't even find records of any plans on my computers. But who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? It suited my purposes and made my life a bit more convenient.

I flipped the switch and blinked at the sudden glaring lights before going about my daily routine. As I showered and washed my huge mass of hair, I thought back to my dream. I'd already forgotten most of it. All I remembered was the sounds of explosion and gunfire, the sense of other people in the area, who were causing the gun fire, and a giant mech with glowing red optics that caused the explosions. There wasn't much else that stuck with me. The only reason those things were remembered was because they were so vivid. I'd heard gunfire, sure, but explosions? No. And yet my dream had seemed so real to the point that my heart rate picked up when I thought about it. And what was with those men. Who were they? Why were they so calmly fighting a Cybertronian like it was an everyday occurrence? And what was with the mech himself? I could remember his appearance only in bits and pieces, but those pieces were so vivid. I could remember seeing each individual wire and the dents and scratches the mech was getting on his armor due the bullets he was taking. I recalled those red optics the most. The mere thought of them made me want to shudder. If robotic optics could be filled with hatred and disgust then those were.

I took one last deep breath before turning off the shower and shaking the dream away to be forgotten. It was probably a subconscious thing that thought about alien invasions. I got dressed and took about ten minutes to brush all of my hair back into its braid.

I finally turned off the lights and left the bathroom to enter the soothing darkness again. Without really thinking, I strode across the empty center of my cavern to turn on my computers. I got about half way before I bodily ran into something. Hard. I cursed as I stumbled back, remembering that Optimus was now living with me, but that was drowned out by the sudden start of a loud engine. Stumbling back further and blinking in surprise, I watched as bright headlights came on and Optimus transformed quicker than ever before. He came out of his 2-3 second transformation in a battle ready stance, optics narrowed in a deadly glare, mouth and nose covered in a metal mask, and two very long and dangerous looking orange/gold glowing swords that came out of the top of his forearms and extended about fifteen feet.

I froze as Optimus' ocean blue optics darted everywhere. He frowned in confusion before his optics landed on me and widened in surprise. The metal mask and swords quickly retracted with quiet _snicks_ as he knelt down in front of me, though he left his headlights, or I guess chest lights, on. "Forgive me, Star," he said. "I did not mean to scare you."

I relaxed my shoulders and subtly checked that my hood was up. Shrugging, I replied, "No problem. I should've remembered that I had a semi parked in my home. But now I'm wide awake so I guess that's a plus." The Cybertronian still looked unsure so I reached out and patted the servo that was resting on his knee. "It's alright. You did tell me that you were trained as a warrior."

Optimus reluctantly nodded before standing to his full height. I walked past him and over to my computers, which I turned on with two quick taps of the ENTER button. The tiny corner clock said that it was a little after six and I scowled at it. I'd only gotten five hours of sleep, six at the most. That had to be a crime. I wheeled myself down the table and came to a stop in front of my media computers, specifically the one I used to keep track of local happenings. I gave a humorless laugh as I saw what the main story was for the local newspaper. "Looks like you made front page news," I told the mech from where he was examining one of my projects. He looked up and came over to see what I was talking about.

"Is this a good or a bad thing?" he asked after he looked at the screen for a moment. It was an article about the 'Sudden Meteor Crashing in Chicago'. It even had a picture of the clearing of where Optimus crashed. But what made this a front-pager was the fact that there was no meteor.

I shrugged. "I honestly don't know. Only the people obsessed with aliens will think that the 'meteor' was an alien, and no one listens to them. Most likely, people will blame the government."

He blinked his optics at me as I spun idly in my chair. "Why is that?" he questioned curiously.

I didn't stop spinning as I explained. "Not a lot of people like the government. Taxes and laws and whatnot. People generally think that whenever something strange happens that it's the government because they keep so many things from the general public. Tomorrow's paper will probably be on rumors and theories for hush-hush secret government experiments." I stopped spinning long enough to look up the alien I was now harboring, "People are strange like that, but in its own way it makes sense." Spinning. "We'll get nothing good and nothing bad out of this. It doesn't really affect us."

"That is good to hear," the giant robot responded.

I nodded in agreement as I finally got out of my chair and headed towards where I'd left my backpack before leaving to get food, after stumbling a few steps of course. "I need to head topside and see if anyone wants me to fix anything," I said. "Do you want to come? I usually just sit in the Square until it's the afternoon, tinker with some stuff, and talk to customers, so you won't have much to do until noon." I shrugged on my backpack and turned to see Optimus just finishing his transformation into his alt form. I smiled as the door wordlessly opened. "It can get pretty boring," I warned as I climbed into the cab.

"I would like to see how humans interact with their world," Optimus replied, his deep voice coming over the speakers. "And it would be more boring to stay down here and do nothing."

I shrugged, "Suit yourself."

He drove out of the cavern, stopping briefly to let me turn off the lights, and then we were out of the tunnels after moving the signs and setting them back. I had to move quicker this time, for it was actually day out instead of the dead of night, but nobody saw us. I gave Optimus directions to a small coffee shop and was able to buy some breakfast before heading over to the Square.

Optimus looked a little out of the ordinary parked curb side with the other much smaller cars, but there wasn't much I could do there. I grimaced only once as I walked over to my usual spot and looked over at where Optimus was parked innocently before opening my pack and taking out the circuit board. It was almost done. I just needed to fine tune it a little more and then it was good to go into my Eiffel Tower project. This was a important piece to a very important project, so I'd been working on it for the past week just to make sure I didn't make any mistakes.

As I worked, I was only interrupted twice by customers. One needed his phone fixed and the other wanted his computer fixed. He hadn't spilled anything on the laptop, but he had dropped it and it was cracked and falling apart on the left hinge. It was so sad to see a computer in that state, but I took it nonetheless, setting it in my backpack gently to avoid damage. I had been just about to go back to work on the last bit for my circuit board, when a high pitched beep brought my head up quickly.

I glanced from side to side, trying to locate the source when it went off again, and it was coming from my backpack. I opened it up, thinking that that idiot's phone was going off with a text or call, but the cell phone was off. Looking into my backpack again, I saw a faint glow coming from the crease in the Dell Mrs. Gurter had asked me to fix. I took it out and cautiously opened the Dell, as if expecting it to explode.

The laptop was turned on and on the screen with the icons and shortcuts Mrs. Gurter had up was a smaller black window. Across the top bar, where you could look and tell what program you had open, was only a complicated series of numbers and symbols.

I knew a hack when I saw one. Scowling and glaring at the screen, I was about to close the hack down as well as give the hacker a nasty virus when a single line of white text popped up.

**Hello, Star.**

I blinked in surprise and looked at where the username was for the hacker and blew out a harsh breath when I saw who it was. 0pT1mU$.

I clicked on the dialogue box and quickly typed as I threw a glance at the blue and red semi. **You're not exactly subtle with the username. **My username simply came up as several of those tiny stars you can find on the keyboard.

There was a small pause before Optimus responded, **Your username isn't subtle either.**

I raised an eyebrow towards the truck, **You have to know who I am to understand my username.**

**The same applies to me. As I understand it, my name isn't a common name among humans.**

I smiled a bit and typed, **Touché. And your name is nonexistent here on Earth. **I thought for a moment before keying in, **How were you able to hack into this computer? It's not even mine.**

**I was able to pick up this technology's signal as we drove over here**, he answered simply.

**So why are you messaging me?** I asked. **You're not bored are you?** There was a significant pause, and since Optimus was always instant with his response given that he was technology himself, that told me he was either purposely pausing or thinking over his answer. Either way I rushed to beat him to it. **I told you that you would get bored.**

The answer was instantaneous again. **Yes, you did; however, I think I would be more bored if I had stayed behind. Here, I am able to learn about this planet and its inhabitants through other means than the World Wide Web.**

***Shrug* True.**

**What is that?**

I frowned at the question. Thinking that Optimus had seen something strange around him, I looked to see if there was nothing out of the ordinary. When I came up with nothing I replied, **What's wrong? Did you see something?**

**No**, he replied before the second part of his message came up. **I was curious as to what you meant by "*Shrug*".**

Oh. Whoops. Forgot I was talking to a foreign robot. **Sorry**, I typed. **When you put those stars around a word you're saying that you did that action. So when I typed *Shrug* I was saying that I shrugged.**

**But you didn't**, Optimus responded.

Now I was confused. **What?** The tables were turned.

**You didn't shrug**, he explained.

I threw a small scowl at the innocent looking truck. **I mentally shrugged.**

**Then wouldn't you type "*Mental Shrug*"?**

I blew a small raspberry. The small part of me could only tell that Optimus was feeling an emotion, not what he was feeling. I hadn't been able to tell what he was feeling all morning unlike last night when I had been able to figure that out with only a small amount of effort. Now no amount of effort could get me that information and it frustrated me a bit. **No, I wouldn't. When you type out an action like that it also means that if we were face to face than I would've shrugged at that moment.**

Just as I hit the ENTER button to send him my message, someone called out, "Hey! Little bitch!"

I looked up and saw three teenagers and a 20 year old approach me. They were wearing white and neon yellow shirt. Gold Collectors. I gritted my teeth and mentally swore. I got to my feet, setting the laptop down and ignoring the multiple messages that were popping up. A few people glanced our way at the sound of the angry yell and hurried away when they saw it was a gang related thing.

The twenty year old got up in my space and I discreetly pulled one of my knives out as he growled down at me. "What was that yesterday? Huh? You went and put four of our boys in the hospital! Boss Man don't like that."

I coldly looked up at him, not letting him see my face and letting him know that I wasn't intimidated. "Then Gregory shouldn't have had those boys looking for me. They all end up like the others who found me. You should be happy that I didn't kill them." My voice was icy and I watched with satisfaction as the twenty year old hesitated, not knowing what to do since I wasn't scared or cowering. Apparently Gregory hadn't told him much about me.

"Don't disrespect the Boss Man!" he snapped after a moment. "It's Boss Man or Master. That clear, little bitch?"

"I don't respect cowards," I retorted calmly, purposefully baiting the man/boy.

I watched with amusement as fury flared in his eyes and his hand pulled back to strike me. "You little—!" He was cut off as I moved out of the way of the strike. The twenty-year-old was about to pull back, but froze when he felt the razor sharp edge of my blade against his throat.

"Listen closely," I murmured as I watched the other three teenagers shift uneasily. "I want you to take a message back to Gregory for me. Tell him that I'm getting sick and tired of him and his grudge. Tell him that if he has a problem with me then he should come face me himself. Tell him that if I get even a single hint of trouble from the Gold Collector gang then I will personally make sure that everything electrical blows up in his and every member of the gang's face." I leaned back and looked into those frightened eyes and asked, "Can you do that for me?" He nodded shakily, mouth opening and closing, but no sound coming out. I pushed him away from me and he backed up, fast enough that he stumbled in his haste. "Go away," I ordered as I turned back to the laptop screen that was absolutely filled with messages.

I sighed and shut down the hack and packed up my backpack to head over to Optimus. I still couldn't tell what Optimus was feeling, but I knew he was feeling a lot of something. The passenger side door swung open and I was about to tell him that cars don't do that when he spoke before me. "Are you alright, Star?"

I blinked and thought I heard a bit of urgency and…worry in his voice. "Yeah, I'm fine. Those guys wouldn't be able to hurt me on a good day. My several black belts make sure of that."

Optimus' engine roared to life, startling a few nearby people and I quickly slide over behind the wheel to make it look like I was driving. The mech pulled away from the curb and asked, "Why were those humans trying to harm you?"

I frowned at the radio and spoke as if it should have been obvious, "Because they don't like me. Because they were most likely ordered to."

"I don't understand," he said. "Why do these humans not like you?"

I shrugged, "I take away business from them. The Gold Collectors and any other gang are all about territory and money. They've tried to get me to stop working over the years, but they aren't very good fighters or planners, so I live on to take more of their potential customers."

Optimus was quiet as he thought and did research on what I'd said. I could tell that whatever he had been feeling had calmed down and had almost left altogether. We drove in silence until we were almost to the tunnels. Optimus asked, "What do you think will be the reaction of this Gregory?"

I raised an eyebrow at the fact the he'd been able to hear my conversation, but he was an advanced alien robot after all. "I don't know," I answered. "Greg has his smart and dumb days. He could have an attack ordered on me tomorrow or anywhere in the near future, but he knows my reputation. He knows that I could pull through on my threat to destroy anything electrical that he has. It's just a matter of whether he'll think I'm bluffing or not."

"Are you bluffing?"

I sighed and shook my head. "Sadly, no. Though I really hope he's smart about this. I hate it when technology is destroyed. And I'd hate it even more if I did it on purpose. But I'd do it. It's better than me getting hurt in a future fight or me killing someone else. I really, _really_ hope to avoid that."

"I think that it is wise to avoid as much conflict as possible. To try and open negotiations should always be a first step before resorting to violence."

I nodded in agreement as he pulled to stop at the top of the ramp. "Yes, but sometimes you have no choice but to react with violence." His silence was my answer as I got out to move the signs.

When we were back in the cavern, Optimus transformed as soon as he had the proper room and I headed over to my computers to see if anyone had wandered inside the tunnels while I was gone. Luckily, no one had, and I was able to turn my attention to my government computers. Hearing Optimus move somewhere close behind me, I glanced over my shoulder to see him kneeling behind me, watching what I was doing as I began to search my government's files for any juicy information that had been added during the day. I'm sure any other person would've felt weird to have someone read over their shoulder, even more so since that person was a 30 foot tall alien robot, but I felt strangely flattered that someone as advanced technology-wise was interested in what I did.

"What is it you are looking for?" Optimus asked after a minute of silent watching.

I shrugged and tugged my hood farther down my face out of habit. "Nothing specific really. Just anything that would be interesting to know."

"So you leave the information you deem uninteresting?"

I spun in my chair to give the mech my total attention. I may have been isolated from people pretty much my entire life, but I had learned my manners from watching other people interact and I had no desire to be rude to anyone that didn't deserve it. Optimus certainly didn't deserve that: he was asking a legit curious question. I shook my head in answer, "No. That would be against the point of keeping an eye on the government if I ignored the little things. The important things are in the little things. You just have to know where to look and how to piece one little thing to another and if you do it right you'll see a pattern that points you to the government's movements and plans."

I spun my chair to face my 'search' government computer. My fingers flew across the keyboard, bringing up various documents and orders until they were all next to each other, "This here is a pattern in itself. It's not quite obvious and I had to dig for a few of these, but these point to a secret operation that's going to happen over in Qatar. The government has intel that there is a group of terrorists kidnapping children and selling them into slavery." I motioned to three documents that had references about the information before pointing to another set of documents. "So then you have a sudden set of orders for these men to go to Qatar. This is Lennox's team; they're only called in when the government doesn't have a lot of options in a situation and this is the only problem within Qatar that would call for Lennox's team's level of skill." I then just waved to the rest of the documents. "And then you have orders for supplies for recon in the area the terrorist group. That in itself is going to take time, because the only information the team has is that child slavery is going on. They'll need to learn which group of terrorists it is, the location, the security, the amount of business that goes on, and so on."

I spun back around and faced the Cybertronian that was listening with rapt attention. "Normally, it would take a team a week or two to do the recon alone, but this is Lennox's team and they have orders to get this done as soon as possible, so may be a week or even less if their previous missions are anything to go by." I spread my hands and finished my lecture with, "And all this was learned through the little bits of information that most would be called uninteresting."

Those blue optics looked at my screen for a moment before looking down at me and said with frank admiration, "It is impressive that you know all of this. You would make a brilliant communications officer if you were one."

I felt something in my chest expand and I was flustered for a moment. How did one respond to a compliment? I didn't know: not from experience. I searched my memory quickly for an instant where I saw someone be given a compliment. "Thank you," I murmured, fiddling with the metal tab to the zipper of my big jacket.

Optimus nodded in response before slowly standing and going over to my projects which seemed to greatly interest him if the amount of attention he was always paying to them was anything to go by. I watched his armored, powerful, mechanical body practically glide to the opposite side of the room with near silent steps in only a few strides. _God,_ I thought, observing how the mech moved with a regal air. _The government would have a field day if they found out an alien robot was on Earth._ I sighed a deep breath before freezing utterly still. I absently saw Optimus stop mid-step and turn to look at me, as if he could sense that something had changed in me the way I could sense his emotions.

I slowly turned over that thought in my head before cursing and muttering under my breath. "I can't believe I hadn't thought about it earlier! God, I'm such an idiot!" I would've slapped my forehead if I wasn't typing commands furiously into my 'search' government computer.

"You are not an idiot, Star," Optimus said as he came back over to me. "What is it that caused you to think such things?"

"What are the possibilities that another Cybertronian landed on Earth?" I asked, not even tearing my eyes away from my screen. "Before you, I mean?"

I could almost feel his frown as mine as he knelt again. "I do not know," he solemnly answered.

I paused only long enough to reach back and pat Optimus' leg reassuringly, "No worries, big guy. If you'll let me I want to study how you work later. If I get a little knowledge on your body then I might be able to further understand how to fix your head."

"I would appreciate that," he replied as I went back to typing. I could tell his optics were as glued to my screen as mine were as it flashed quickly between one file to another. "What is it that you are looking for? Evidence that other Cybertronians have landed here on Earth?"

I nodded as I finally got to a general search that would go through every government organization to search for any keyword that I inputted. "If you landed here, then so could someone else. And if someone did, then the government would have at least heard a rumor of it and investigated." Thinking for a moment, I typed in the words 'Missing Meteor.' into the search box. I hit ENTER and sat back in my chair as my computers went through the monumental task of searching through everything government. I silently encouraged the progress bar to move faster and immediately leaned forward to see the results when it was done searching two minutes later. I sagged in disappointment. All I got was reports from NASA and any other astrology oriented organization about meteors. I looked over my shoulder and told Optimus, "This is a lot to go through. It may be a while before I have anything."

He nodded in understanding and stood again to leave me to work. "Of course."

I sighed and began to read the first report before discarding it as useless and moving on to the next. I'd gone through 64 out of 371 reports with a fine-toothed comb by the end of the hour. In that time Optimus had changed back to his alt mode and sat quietly in the center of the room. I sat back with a glance at the red and blue semi. He was probably hoping that I would be able to uncover that he had a fellow Cybertronian on Earth, one that could help him. He was depending on me to dig up any information and so far I'd only learned that NASA was annoyingly thorough with their reports. 15-page-reports thorough. The giant robot was relying on me to come through.

The thought came to me in stupid simplicity. Shrugging, I cleared the irritating meteor reports and typed in 'Giant Robots. Crash Landed. Alien.' into the search box. This search was much shorter than the first and only came up with one link. Me being frustrated and looking for anything useful, opened the link without thought of why there was no name for the link other than 'S7'.

I jumped when an alarm went off and realized it was my 'computer trouble alarm', set to let me know when someone decided to hack into my computer or when a virus was trying to get into my system or some other trouble. I cursed loudly as my screen was replaced with lines of menacing codes and my hands immediately jumped to my keys. "Son of a bitch," I growled through gritted teeth, as I saw that the code was sent to completely _destroy_ my computer to the point that I wouldn't be able to recover anything with all my skill and then some.

"What is it?" came the calm voice of Optimus as he transformed and came to see what had me so angry, but I picked up that he was suddenly feeling a bad whirl of emotions and his words were said faster than usual. He was tense because he saw me tense.

"It's a hacker trap," I explained in a rapid voice. "It's designed to… Ah shit! I'll tell you later!" I countered the sudden memory erase command and struggled to stop the attack. The only thing I had going for me was that this violent attack was created through a ridiculously simple coding. Its only defense was that the defendee was usually too busy blocking the attacks to destroy the code. That defendee wasn't supposed to be me. I blocked the initial attack and worked past my shock to obliterate the code in 45 seconds. I froze and watched as my screen went blank for a moment before coming alive again. I didn't pay attention to what was now on my screen as I sat back as crossed my arms before smirking smugly, "Take that, you mother fucker! You don't got nothing on me."

"What was that?" Optimus asked now that it was obvious that I wasn't distracted anymore.

I smiled up at him, still feeling my victory. "That was hacker trap. To put it simply, it's a program that's designed to stop hackers. You hack, it traps. There are different kinds of hacker traps. Some of them are mild and slow down your computer, some are moderate and give you a virus, and some are dangerous like this one and are either programmed to outright destroy your computer or give you a virus that will do the job. Each trap varies in strength depending on the type of code it's written up with and this one was relatively simple despite its ferocity. Obviously it was done by either an amateur or someone who does a half-assed job, though if I'd been any slower in reacting I would've been given a run for my money to keep it from doing damage." I frowned in thought as the mech patiently watched me and the victory faded enough for me to see beyond just the fight. "I wonder why there was a hacker trap like that on a single file."

I was about to turn around and see what I'd dug up, but Optimus asked, "Why are you confused about that? Wouldn't one use that when they wish to keep something to themselves?"

I nodded, liking that I could impart my knowledge on to someone. "Yes, but to use a hacker trap on _one _file? I've seen hacker traps on multiple files, but never a single file." Curiosity finally rearing its persistent head, I spun in my chair and let my eyes roam over what I'd won. My mouth dropped in shock. "Holy shit," I muttered, not really believing what I was seeing.

"What is that?" Optimus asked. "It is not like any human language."

"'Cause this is an encryption," I answered absently, still in shock. "I've never seen an encryption of this level though. And I hacked into the government itself. If they don't have this then I wonder what warrants better security than the government." I typed in a command to free the encryption to my entire screen and to allow me to read each individual command code entered. I whistled in amazement and leaned back, finally overcoming my surprise. "This is some heavy shit."

I heard Optimus shift his weight a little before answering after a pause. "This is not something I can help you with," he announced, and I could barely, _barely_, feel that he was apologetic. "There is not much about hacking and coding on the World Wide Web."

I nodded in understanding. "Wouldn't want to have any competition. If hackers find anyone trying to give a guide on how to be a hacker they erase it."

"Do you think you'll be able to decode this?" he asked.

I leaned my elbows on the table and regarded the code with a critical eye. Scratching my head, I answered, "I could do most anything given enough time. This, though, will take a bit of work." I quickly went over the math in my head and eventually said, "A week? Two? That's if I work on this in whatever free time I have between doing my work. If I work on nothing but this then I can get it done it a day and a half."

"Do not over work yourself," the calm authoritative voice said, stopping my itching fingers from touching my keys.

I looked over my shoulder and frowned at the mech. "I don't understand," I said. "Don't you want to know if another Cybertronian is here? There's something related to Cybertronians here if they have such an elaborate encryption. There has to be."

Optimus blinked and I could feel a swirl of some emotion going through him. I wondered briefly if I should mention that I was able to tell what he was feeling, but I shied away from that idea quickly. Telling an advanced and stranded alien robot that a small inferior human could read his emotions didn't sound like a very good thing. "News of others here on Earth would be welcome, but not if you have to overwork yourself," the mech explained. "You have not eaten since this morning and my research into humans says that you must eat at least three square meals a day and you were approached with two jobs today. Working on this encryption now would keep you from your daily life and I do not want that."

I searched his ocean blue optics for a moment before looking back at the temptation that was a puzzle and challenge before looking back up the mech. Sighing, I replied, "Fine, but I'm still working on this tonight." I said the last part while pointing a finger at Optimus that dared him to say otherwise.

His lips simply twitched a little and his optics seemed to warm as he regarded me. "Of course," he agreed. Smart 'bot.

Scooping up my backpack and studiously ignoring the encryption, I walked over to my stereo and popped in a random CD before going over to my projects and setting my pack on the empty space. The urge of work on the 'Eiffel Tower' was stronger than ever since I hadn't worked on it at all yesterday, but, again, I soothed it with the promise that my work today would be quick.

Optimus was doing something behind me to amuse himself while I finished the cell phone with no problem: I had only had to replace a component. I was almost done restoring the fractured plastic case of the laptop when the mech suddenly asked, "What is it you are trying to build here?"

I jumped slightly and just barely managed to keep my screwdriver from flying from my hand. _Damn!_ I thought as I turned my head. _For a giant robot he's a frickin' ninja!_ Said ninja mech was curiously looking over my 'Eiffel Tower' project. "That?" I blurted in surprise. I was about to answer when the stray thought came to me. "Aren't you able to tell what it is? You are a super advanced robot." I didn't realize my tone was teasing and sly until Optimus glanced at me. I felt my cheeks heat in embarrassment as I worried for a moment about teasing in a wrong way. The Cybertronian was hooked up to the internet, he should be able to tell if I was awkward or wrong in my interactions with him.

I sighed a little in relief when he just glanced back at my project. "No. There is nothing like this on the World Wide Web and I cannot see the purpose of why this is built," he explained before glancing over at me again, silently asking me to tell him.

I shrugged and went back to the laptop as I answered, "It's going to be a wireless tower."

"Wireless?" he repeated. I was able to feel his confusion for sure now, but it wasn't anywhere near as strong as last night. "But there are wires in it. How can it be wireless if it has wires?"

I laughed quietly and couldn't help but smile at the naïve question. Turning, my smile grew as I saw Optimus moving his large head this way and that to see my wireless tower from every angle, checking that there were indeed wires. "Not literally, Optimus," I corrected as I twisted a screw into the laptops new frame. "'Wireless, as in it doesn't need wires to connect to anything external, like my computers. That's what it's for, by the way. I'm building that tower so that I can take a laptop with me when I'm out and still be connected to my computers. The wireless tower will serve as a connector between the two sources. It does that by syncing the signals between the two systems."

"Oh," he replied quietly, and I didn't need to be empathetic to know that he was embarrassed.

I set the finished laptop in my bag before pulling out the bag with the all important circuit board and approached the kneeling mech. "Don't worry about it, Optimus. English has a lot of weird sayings that can be taken a hundred different ways. I honestly prefer German because it makes more sense, but English is my first language, so I stick to that mostly." I thought for a moment as I stood before wireless tower and mech. "But you'll hear me just switch between languages at times." I shrugged and took the circuit board out of its bag, "I don't even realize I do it most times."

Optimus watched me with his unreadable optics before he said something short in Cybertronian. I immediately stopped what I was doing and focused on what he was saying. After replaying it in my head, I slowly repeated it. I glanced up when Optimus repeated a sound and realized I was being corrected. It took a few tries and a few stops to clear my throat and once to cough, but I finally got it down if I said it slowly. "What does that mean?" I asked.

"That is Cybertronian for 'My name is Dark Star'," he answered simply.

I smiled softly and repeated the sentence at a slightly faster pace so I could get used to the speed that Optimus spoke at. "Which sound is my name?" He responded by making the hum and trilling that starts the sentence. Repeating the sounds, I felt pleasure bloom in my chest. It felt like all those years ago and I had named myself only ten times stronger. I couldn't stop the brief laughter of joy that escaped me before I grinned up at the mech, "Thank you."

He nodded, "You are welcome. That will be how I teach you Cybertronian. Phrase by phrase and word by word." He sat back on his rear and rested his arms behind him, much how he sat in the clearing when I met him the night before.

I raised an eyebrow I hoped he couldn't see before leaning against a table to finish the finally touches on the circuit board. I thought about asking why he suddenly changed his mind, but chose against it: he was going to teach me and I wasn't about to chance that. "I'm listening."

He nodded, "I will first tell you how our sentences are constructed."

As I worked I listened intently to everything Optimus was saying and memorized it as best as I could. It was then that I felt the urge to take notes again, but I really wanted to get the circuit board into the wireless tower. It was a full half hour of his lecturing, my questioning, and his explaining before we actually got to speaking in Cybertronian. Kneeling by my tower, I repeated the words, sounds really, back to the mech until I said them to his satisfaction and learned what each sound meant and what its purpose was in a sentence. Time was lost on me and I eventually got the circuit board in place. I'd learned over fifty words in Cybertronian and had them burned into my brain with the amount of times Optimus had quizzed me on them. I also could say basic statements, like my name and age and where I was as well as ask questions. Basically, I could carry on a conversation with Optimus in his home language, slowly of course, but I was constantly muttering under my breath to improve my speed. My Cybertronian was also hampered by my on and off coughs as the sounds roughed my vocal cords. It was a much more complicated language than I originally thought, with what seemed like a different sound for each word, but my experience in Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic allowed me to soak up the complex language with little difficulty.

"_**Is something wrong?**_" Optimus asked slowly in Cybertronian, so my mind could translate.

I peered inside my wireless tower and tried to see if I had done anything wrong with its design. Standing up I shook my head and searched my limited vocabulary for an answer. "_**No. Looks…everything…is here.**_"

"_**Looks like everything is here**_," he corrected automatically and I repeated it back so I had it in my head. "_**That is good, right? Will it work?**_"

I grinned after a short pause to translate. Nodding my head, I quickly, and proudly, replied, "_**Yes. It should work now.**_" I'd just said it close to Optimus' speed and I did a quick little dance to the song that was playing.

He cocked his head at me before asking in English, "Do you like to dance?"

Shrugging, I went back to looking over my tower and mental tracing the paths of each wire, not even realizing I was tapping my hand to the beat of the song. "I listen to music all the time, so, yeah, I like to dance."  
"Do you sing?" I held up my fingers with an inch between them as I frowned in concentration at the most complicated and central part of the tower. If that wasn't in working order, then this thing was likely to explode with the amount of power that would be running through it and escape through the vast number of paths I had weaved into it. "How far is the range on the wireless tower?"

I smiled and looked up at the curious mech, answering with more than a little pleasure. "If I did this right, than I could be pretty much anywhere in the world and still access my computers with my laptop."

Optimus blinked and I felt a burst of emotion. Surprise, I assume. "That is impressive," he praised, looking over the surprisingly small piece of machinery that would be able to do so much. It was really like a small Eiffel Tower that weighed as much as a small car, only it was about seven feet tall and had a base that was a three-and-a-half foot by three-and-a-half metal square. "How did you accomplish this?" the Cybertronian asked as he met my eyes, which was a little disconcerting since I had my hood up and my face hidden in shadows. "It is my understanding that it takes satellites to get such a range."

Grinning, I nodded my head. "That's the beauty of being hacked into the U.S. government main frame. I have access to any U.S. satellite and my wireless tower will be permanently linked to one, providing a connection between computers and laptop." I leaned down and scooped up a heavy coil of extensions cords and unwound it as I walked over to an outlet that was clear across my cavern by my computers.

"How do you know if it works?"

"You might want to back away from that," I said, not answering just yet. Looking up, I saw Optimus glance at me in confusion before cautiously stepping away from my project, eyeing like it was going to blow up, which was a possibility. "And we'll find out right now," I answered and plugged in the extension cord. The mech threw me a worried look, but I only waved a hand at him to back up further, not taking my eyes off my tower.

Watching with bated breath, a green light came on at the base at the tower, and, within moments, more green lights were coming on as they slowly crept up the height of the tower. My eyes widened at a long pause between lights at the very peak of the tower, and, for a second, I thought I really had done something wrong before the last light came on with a soft ping that echoed in the deathly silent cavern. I threw my hands up in the air and shouted, "Yes!" I ran up to the laptop I had resting on the table by the tower and turned it on. "Come on, come on," I softly chanted, encouraging the extremely modified laptop to come on faster. A familiar password page came up and I typed in my password before a window with long lines of coding appeared. The coding began to disappear until I had a blank screen and the text 'UPLOAD COMPLETE' came up, followed closely behind by my screen splitting into 16 different squares, each one with the image of what was currently on each of my monitors.

I grinned foolishly and turned the laptop for Optimus to see. "We now have a wireless connection."

I preened a little when he smiled softly at me. "Congratulations. I'm happy your endeavor was successful."

I laughed and set the laptop down, practically buzzing with excitement and energy. Nodding, I replied, "I am too. It was either it worked or it blew up, so this is good." Optimus looked at me with an expression that was torn between amusement and bafflement.

I laughed again and jumped up and down on my toes. I wondered briefly when was the last time I'd had a good laugh before I couldn't resist the urge to move. I threw myself into a front-handspring and began to rapidly tumble across the floor, flipping through the air and twisting my body into any position I wanted. There was a flash of more surprise, I think, as I was suddenly moving, but I didn't pay it much heed as I lost myself in the pleasure of gymnastics. It felt so good to properly stretch my muscles and hear the satisfying smack of my hands and feet on the concrete floor.

It wasn't until it was a few minutes later that I finally stopped my spontaneous gymnastics, feeling under control again, though I couldn't keep the satisfied smile off my face. Optimus looked at me in question and I spoke as I got my breathing under control. "I've been working on that thing for a year and a half now. I didn't really think I would ever get it done, let alone working."

Optimus shook his head, still looking a little confused. "I was wondering why you hid your face."

My good mood disappeared in less than a heartbeat as my hands flew up in hopes of feeling my hood on my head. It wasn't. My hands shook in their haste to bring put the material that hide my face and I felt the blood drain from my face as Optimus frowned at my actions. "Why do you hide, Star?" he repeated, coming closer to kneel in front of me.

My mouth opened and I had a scathing retort for the mech to back off, but something held me back. I just knew that it would hurt Optimus if I didn't trust him since he was trusting me with his life what with his memory being gone and me hiding him. My teeth came together with a _click_ as I looked down at the ground, wishing that my hood hadn't come down in my burst of excitement. How did one tell another, who was so much more regal and powerful and just above you in every single possible way, that you hid your face out of shame and fear? How did someone tell another that you're afraid of being rejected for looking disfigured and scarred? That you were ashamed that you had them in the first place: that you hadn't been strong enough to keep from getting them?

I felt something big rub down my back and I looked up to see that Optimus was running a single warm metal finger down my back to comfort me, making soothing sounds in his own tongue. My shoulders drooped, making me realize that I had tensed up. I remained quiet for a little while before I answered softly in an emotionless voice, "Hiding is what keeps me safe." If I ever spoke a more personal truth it would be too soon. Beside my cavern I had little else to keep me safe: I took gymnastics, and karate, and Jujitsu, and Taekwondo, and a dozen other self-defense classes because I had only me to keep me safe. Hiding was just an extension of trying to stay safe and protect myself.

Optimus placed his servo out flat for me to step on to and I did, sinking into a crouch to better keep my balance as the mech stood his full thirty feet and held me level with his optics. He blinked, looking me over until he asked, "Why would you hide from me when I am the very one who will protect you?"

It was my turn to blink, this time in surprise. "Why would you protect me?" I blurted and felt my cheeks warm in an embarrassment. I had put a bit of emphasis on 'me', showing that I thought I didn't think I was worthy of protecting, but Optimus would only realize this if he thought that way.

Which he didn't if his response was anything to go by. He cocked his head to the side and frowned at me as if I was an extremely confusing puzzle, "Don't friends protect each other?"

I found myself nodding before my brain recovered from its shock. A part of me reared back in surprise at the thought of having a friend. After my entire life of being shunned and hurt and rejected, was it really possible to have a friend? Someone I could be myself with? That gave me pause. Would Optimus think less of me if he knew I was abused and beaten as I child like everyone else? I didn't want to risk it, but I also didn't want to someone who would be my very first friend. A very helpful corner of my brain offered to only offer the information if Optimus asked and I felt the butterflies in my stomach settle at the thought. That could work.

Optimus gently pushed back my hood and pulled my braid out from the back of my jacket. "You are protecting me by allowing me to stay here," he said. "So I will protect you from any danger that may come at you. I promise." I nodded, trying to sort through my feelings at being friends with an alien robot. Optimus smiled and I felt that his emotions had taken on a warm glow. "Speaking of protection," he began in a tone that instantly made me wary, making me forget my turmoil. "It's time you began to learn how to fight a Cybertronian."

I felt my jaw drop and I sputtered for a moment before getting out, "You're going to teach me how to fight one of you? Me, a _human_, against a _Cybertronian_?" He simply nodded and I demanded, "Did that dent damage more than your memory archives?"

His optics softened a bit and he smiled while shaking his enormous head. "No, I have run several self-diagnostics and it is only my memory archives that are damaged."

"So why are you offering me not only knowledge on how to hurt you, but also the offer to teach me the skill to hurt you?"

"You said so yourself," he explained, instantly throwing me for a loop. What had I said that made him think I needed to learn how to fight 30 plus foot tall robots? "There may be other Cybertronians here on Earth. Some might not be as cooperative as me and may wish to hurt you. If I teach you, you will be able to properly defend yourself."

I frowned and looked at him sideways, picking up that he was offering to teach me for another reason entirely. He may have been speaking the truth, but it was only a half-truth and I recognized one as a person who often told them. "Please tell me the truth, Optimus."

Those blue optics blinked before his face smoothed out until it was unreadable. I could tell he was thinking over telling me his real reason. He finally nodded and replied while looking up and I knew he was looking for the night sky, which he often looked up at the night before on our way back. "I have this…feeling. This notion or instinct that it would be very important for you to learn how to fight Cybertronians. That your life would depend on these skills in the near future."

I frowned at him, wondering briefly if he might be psychic or maybe had this extra alien ability before throwing caution to the wind. It couldn't hurt to learn something new. "Why not?" I asked with a shrug. "I'm not one to turn down a lesson. Btu what am I going to fight with? Something makes me think that guns aren't going to be very effective against you."

Optimus simply reached into a crevice in his right arm, the arm holding me, and pulled a four foot long piece of metal. I looked at it confused and instinctively held out my hands when he offered it to me. I nearly toppled off his servo at the unexpected weight of the metal pole. It was as thick around as my fist was and four feet long and weighed close to fifteen or twenty pounds. "This will work until we get you a proper sword," he announced as I regained my balance, holding the piece of metal, my 'sword' across my lap.

I raised an eyebrow when I saw that the edges of the metal for three feet were sharpened to deadly edges, just like a sword was. I thought about asking him why he was giving me a deadly weapon that could hurt him before shrugging, he obviously knew what he was doing if he was willing to teach me. "When do we start?" I asked.

He smiled. "Now."

He dropped me.

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Sappy friend moment here and I weeded out the Mary Sue moments. God, I'm horrible. And just a warning, I'm writing way far ahead and it's a bit too late for me to make changes here in the beginning so I'd like all of you to pretend that Dark Star's and Optimus' time here in Chicago took place over the course of a few weeks. I know with what I've written it doesn't fit, but just pretend for me, okay? Humor me.**

**Otherwise, thank you for reading and please tell me your thoughts. I really enjoy them!**

**See you later!**


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